kale's Until the Dawning of Forever

by Eowyn the Fair

To heal the wounds brought by years of abuse and torture, Yamato must help Rio Kuroda find forgiveness for her dead brother. But meanwhile, the digital world is threatened with destruction by the greatest force for Good ever unleashed...

Until the Dawning of Forever

Rio Kuroda stood alone in the desolate, broken field, listening to the wind as it whistled through the branches of the barren trees surrounding the place, her hands folded gently in front of her. A few dead, crinkly-brown leaves were left holding on to those branches... but only a very few, and not for much longer. Already the ground beneath her feet was scattered with a great many of their brethren, and a great many more were also tumbling past her on the gentle currents of wind.

The girl brought one hand up and brushed her long, black hair over one ear as she stood over the lonely marker that she had erected in memory of her brother, Roan. Not really a grave, of course, for there was no body to be buried. She and Matt had always assumed that his body remained somewhere in the Void; that dead land where they had journeyed to a little less than a year ago to save the boy's friends Davis, Yolei and Cody. They could not, of course, go back to get the older teen's body... not that she would want to in any event, but a return trip to that place seemed now to be completely unfeasible.

And Roan's last body... that of the massive, crimson dragon which he had become in the battle against Matt's little brother T.K.... there was nothing left of that but dust. She had watched with Matt as the younger, blond-haired child had struck down the horrid creature with the radiant Arrow of Faith. To this day the memories of that final battle haunted her still. The screams of the injured and the dying in the streets of Iwaki as Roan had spit his hatred in streaks of black fire from the mouth of the crystalline horror. The savage beatings inflicted by neighbor upon neighbor as her brother's hatred had swept through and infected the populace of that once peaceful city. The awful horror... and the terrible splendor of the final confrontation.

The girl knelt by the grave marker, running her slender fingers down the smooth, cold stone face of the black marble. For several months she had debated whether to even erect such a monument to her fallen sibling or whether to try to forget him altogether. He had caused pain to so many... more than could be easily counted. Many dozens, probably hundreds, had lost their lives because of him. Countless others had their lives irrevocably changed for the worse... herself included. But still, he was her brother, and there had been a time long ago when she had loved him more than anything.

A momentary shimmering sensation at her side announced the arrival of Wizardmon. The girl did not turn to acknowledge his arrival, nor did he expect her to. A strong bond had formed between the pair during the past months, and both recognized and respected the other's need for solitude from time to time. They were remarkably similar, those two. Both who had at one time served an evil, domineering master but who also had been given a chance at redemption by turning their backs on those masters and aiding the cause of good.

"Why do you cry, Rio? Is it for yourself, or for him?"

The dark-haired girl looked up, surprised as she raised a hand and felt the cool wetness streaming down her cheeks. The little creature's question, as well as the emotion that inspired it, haunted her. After all, why should she cry for Roan? She of all people had cause to hate him. How many times had he beaten her, savagely, for no reason other than her existence? How many times had he violated her, forcing himself upon her sexually, taking from a sister what no brother ever should? And how many times had he forced her to join in his evil, nightmarish acts to inflict pain and suffering upon others? Why, the first time that they had met, Rio had done her best to kill both T.K. and his little friend Kari.

She brought her trembling hands to her mouth and clasped them there tightly for a few moments, moments in which Wizardmon remained there quietly, still watching her. She did not consider it an intrusion. Instead she felt rather grateful to him for having forced her to confront her feelings. She knew, without a doubt, that the nightmares would not stop until she did.

It was a few quiet moments and a sad, short sigh later before the girl felt up to an answer. "I... I guess that I'm crying for all of us, Wizardmon. For myself, and Roan, and all the other people that he ever hurt in his life. It's terrible, but every time I come up here I don't know whether to look at that marker and try to remember him or whether to spit on it, knock it down and condemn him to Hell."

The incorporeal little digimon swirled around her legs, digesting the words as he took in her expression from every possible angle. "The latter would be a useless sentiment, I believe. Forget about him if you will... or if you can, but do not condemn him. If such a condemnation was warranted then it has already been meted out and you should allow your anger to turn to pity. And if it was not then you have no just cause to want it for him."

The girl wiped her wet eyes with the back of her trembling hand as she paused to consider the other's statement, forcing a weak smile as she looked down upon him. After a long moment, she pulled her eyes off of him. "You're a very forgiving creature, you know that Wizardmon?"

The other bowed his ghostly head, showing her nothing but the top of his ragged hat. "It is something that I have been thinking upon greatly during my time in this world... and with you. Many months ago it was not so. Do you remember the man? The one who Cody had attacked in the Void? The one who had tried to force himself upon Yolei?"

Rio nodded slowly, remembering vividly the ugly, retarded man that they had found left to die in the middle of the desert of the Void after having been savagely beaten by Cody in a Kendo match in which her brother had compelled them to compete. The memories from that time were still raw and painful, but... "Yes. I remember."

The pair now started down the gravelly pathway, away from the dark land where the marker had been set up. It was a long walk back to the outskirts of town, but it would do the girl good to have some time to reflect upon her journey before she saw any of the others again. Wizardmon nodded. "Then you will remember that Matt and I were the only ones who were willing to abandon him there as a fitting punishment for what he had done. Though his wrong was not against me, I still felt the strong urge to see him punished. It was only when you and the others insisted that I agreed, hesitantly, to help save him."

The willowy, pale-skinned girl seemed to consider this for a moment. "I'm not sure that's an apt comparison, Wizardmon. None of saw what he did to Yolei, or what Cody did to him. All we saw was the end result, and had only Kari's word to tell us what he'd done. With Roan... I lived through it. All of it. Almost every terrible thing that he did his entire life I was there for, sometimes helping, sometimes watching. And other times when I was his victim. Like it was with you and Myotismon."

Wizardmon again bowed his head, so it was impossible to read the expression in his eyes as he spoke a response. "Many hours I have sat in contemplation of Myotismon. And perhaps you are correct. There are many great parallels between him and your brother... but in the end, I felt as though I could forgive him as well. Were he still alive, though, I fear it would not be so easy. I believe it to be much easier to forgive a memory than it is to forgive the living."

A gentle gust of wind set the hem of the girl's short skirt to fluttering about her thighs. The air was quickly growing colder, a sure sign of winter's impending arrival as well as that of the onset of nighttime. As she brushed a few tendrils of her dark hair out of her eyes, she let the matter drop. It was already becoming gloomy enough without such unhappy thoughts weighing on her mind. But she also knew that, unlike her lonesome old life, she now had one sure remedy for unhappiness...

************************

Matt's fingers danced lightly along the strings of his guitar, the blond-haired teen closing his eyes as he allowed the chords to run from his brain, through his arm and out those fingers to become the melody that he sought. He grinned. Ballad. Sappy lovey-type song. Who'd ever have thought it?

"Hey, Matt!" called an unsteady voice from the other side of the door behind which the boy sat. Matt frowned at the closed door, then sighed and allowed his fingers to drop from the strings. Damn. He'd almost had it there for a moment.

"What is it, Jano?" he returned impatiently, at the same time biting back a smug grin. A gofer. He, Matt Ishida, had a gofer. And while the gawky little red-haired freshman had his weaknesses, at least he was loyal. And free, apparently not wanting anything but the simple pleasure of basking in the glow of Matt's presence. His allegiance to the boy was almost... almost, but not quite, creepy.

"Matt! 'nother girl to see you!"

The blond-haired boy sighed. Not again. It had been so much easier when Jun's rumor that he was gay had been making its way throughout the ears of the school. It was, of course, something that she, at least, still firmly believed after being told so by her little brother almost a year ago. Apparently the thought that a straight Matt would avoid her so ardently would be a little too much for her ego to assume. Now that Rio had been returned to him, of course, most everyone knew the truth, but Jun remained blissfully ignorant.

"What does she want? An autograph? Just give her one of those signed pictures that you're supposed to be handing out and send her away."

Matt heard a brief, murmured conversation ensue outside the doorway as he resumed his creative mindset. He was surprised that Jano had interrupted him for that. He was usually quite overprotective of Matt's privacy.

After a few moments, another knock. Matt's eyes almost rolled back into his head. "Uhm... uh... M... Matt? She says she doesn't really want an autographed picture, but if you want to give her something that she's got a b... b... bunch of really interesting ideas about what she does want. Uhm, Matt? I really think you should talk to this one!" the younger boy stammered.

Matt's eyes widened just a moment in alarm. But then... wait a minute.

The door opened and Matt stuck his head out. "Rio?"

The pale, lithe girl gave the yellow-haired boy a mischievous smile as he emerged from his dressing room, his cerulean eyes trailing all the way down her slender frame... and lingering for quite a while on the hem of her short skirt, which seemed to him to show off a great deal of leg. A surge of warmth rushed to his face, and for a brief moment he was afraid that she would be as successful at flustering him as she had been with the younger boy. Rio was genuine, yes, but when she got it into her mind to be so there were very, very few that could be as seductive as she.

Matt shook his head, breaking the spell that Rio's legs had trapped him in for a moment. The teen gave Jano a gentle slap on the back of the head, helping him to avert his eyes as well. He sighed. "Jano, this is Rio. She can come in anytime. Any time. Got it?" he almost growled at the younger boy.

The other nodded silently, his freckled face still flushed and almost as red as his curly hair.

Matt paused for a moment. "And don't ever let me catch you looking at her legs like that again."

With that unveiled threat still dangling in the air behind him, Matt took the girl's hand tightly in his own and pulled her into the dressing room, slamming the door shut behind them. Jano stared after them for a moment, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and began to wipe his forehead. His opinion of Matt, as high as it had been before, had just increased tenfold. "Wow," he exhaled quietly, then turned and sat down beside the pile of glossy pictures that he was supposed to be handing out.

Matt twisted the lock on the door handle, then quickly turned around and reached forward to greet the black-haired girl. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and pulled her close, kissing her once, briefly, before he turned his head sideways to look at her. "A lot of interesting ideas about what I can give you, huh?" the boy asked smugly.

After a moment of dangerous silence had passed, the mischievous smile reappeared on the girl's lips as she leaned over and started to whisper in the boy's ear. If he wanted to play... well, that was just fine with her, of course. This was one area where she had no doubt that she was in control.

After only a few murmured words from the girl, Matt's blue eyes widened in astonishment. A very few more and his mouth sagged wide open, indeed, quite wide enough for a thorough examination of his rear teeth if any dentists should happen to stumble in at that moment. It was only by sheer luck and the very sudden dryness in his mouth that his tongue did not slide out as well. And then, finally, as the raven-haired girl started in on a veritable torrent of suggestive speech in the boy's ear, his face blushed a deep, dark red as he stumbled away from her.

Matt looked away from her for the few moments in which it took for him to regain his composure, wondering why if suddenly felt so very hot in the cool room. He grinned, supposing that he really should have known better than to try to play that sort of game with her, anyway. While he was quite worldly and very grown-up in a great many matters, the truth (which would have stunned most of his schoolmates) was that he was still a virgin at age seventeen. And the ideas that Rio had about what to do with him... well, they genuinely boggled his mind.

After a long while Matt succeeded in regaining his composure and turned once again to look at the girl, and found that her eyes were locked on him. Dark eyes... sad eyes, steady and unblinking, that always touched Matt's heart more than anything. More than the terrible scars that covered her back, more than the thin lines of worry that creased her face whenever she remembered the dark times that she had lived through. If he studied them hard enough, he could see in those eyes the hell that few people on earth could imagine existed in this life.

The blond-haired boy sighed and walked slowly to her side, placing an arm around her shoulders. She wasn't like this much anymore, not since she had been adopted by his circle of friends. The only times that he could still see that in her eyes was...

"You went back there again, didn't you?"

Rio looked around guiltily for a moment, then straightened her back and nodded. In the old days she never would have admitted so easily to something that the most important boy in her life would not approve of. But then, back in the old days that boy would have been Roan, and no one... no one, upset Roan voluntarily. She was strong, yes, and was discovering more strength every passing day, but there were some lessons which took a lifetime to be unlearned.

Matt took the girl by the slender arm and gently led her to the chair in which he had been sitting. His blue eyes were filled with concern for her as he lowered her into the seat, taking her hand in his. He loved her. Loved her so deeply that it hurt him sometimes, and especially when she was hurting. And most galling to the boy, he did not understand why she continually tortured herself with the memory of Roan. He had tried to convince her time after time that that part of her life was over. There was no need to burden herself with her brother any longer.

"Did it help this time?"

Rio shook her head sadly. She had tried in the past to make Matt understand, but she just did not have the words for it. It wasn't about Roan anymore. It was about her. That part of her life was over, yes, but she needed to have closure, to have it resolved for her one way or another. She could never be complete until she knew for herself what kind of person she was. Did she want to imagine Roan forgiven for his sins or did she need to know that he was ablaze in the furnace of Hell for what he had done to her?

The girl's face scrunched up as she slammed her eyes shut tightly, sudden sobs of repressed pain interned somewhere deep within her threatening to overwhelm her cool facade. God, how either choice haunted her.

Rio fell forward into Matt's arms, weeping bitterly against his chest. "Oh... oh, Matt!" she wept fiercely. "What do I do? I don't think I can live with his memory anymore, but I can't forget him! No matter how much I want to, I remember everything about him... everything, Matt! I can't bring myself to imagine him condemned and I just can't find it in me to forgive him! Every time I see him being tortured in the fires of Hell I see the little nine-year-old who used to push me on the swing when I was just a little girl. And every time I try to forgive him I can hear his screaming, overbearing voice in my ear and feel the cold sweat from his body on top of mine! What do I do?"

Matt held the frantic girl tightly against his shoulder, his right hand gently smoothing down her lustrous black hair. He wished he had an answer for her. He wished that there was something that he could say that would suddenly just make everything all right. But he also knew, with a sinking feeling in his heart, that such words probably did not exist. All that he could do for her was to be there and to listen, to love her and to be a shoulder to cry on. After what she had been through (and for him she had gone into great, almost unutterable detail), he too was sure that she would never be able to forget.

The boy sighed silently, afraid to let Rio hear him for fear that she might misunderstand. He was afraid, terribly afraid, that her problems were doing her physical harm. Though she refused to admit it, he was well aware that she had probably not gotten a full night's sleep as long as he had known her. Now that she lived with him, there had not been one night in the last dozen that he had not been forced to go to her and comfort her nightmares away while she slept. Oftentimes he would wake at 2 in the morning and stay by her bed until daybreak, holding her hand to keep the dreams from her.

Of course he never once mentioned this to her. If she could only sleep well when he was there protecting her, she remained blissfully unaware of it when she woke the next morning.

The girl sat up after crying as much as she would allow herself, drying her eyes with her long sleeve. "I... I'm sorry, Matt," she apologized, her voice sounding very small. Yet the calmness of her words was, obviously and unfortunately, the calmness of composure and not of resolution. "I'm a big girl, and I guess that I should be able to deal with this on my own now."

The blond-haired boy shook his head, his feathery bangs falling into his eyes. "Oh no. No, Rio. I may not be too much help, but I promise that you will never, ever, so long as I live, have to deal with it on your own."

*******************************

Gennai sat alone in his quiet house by the lake, going over the detailed reports that had just arrived from various corners of the digiworld during the last week. He smiled. Now that all of the turmoil of the past years had finally been put to rest, he no longer had to keep his house under the waters of the lake.

The young man shook his head. Peace was wonderful. And while there were still minor disturbances on the eastern continent, nothing terribly important had happened since the children had finally stopped the final incarnation of Myotismon some months back. Oh, on occasion some Ultimate level creature would take it into his head to cause a bit of havoc, and there had been that one unfortunate incident with a newly evolved Mega some months back, but for the most part the digiworld was at peace. Under the watchful eye of Azulongmon, vaccine, data and even virus types were learning to live side by side in peace.

A short peal of thunder somewhere in the distance pulled the man from his admittedly rather utopian reverie. That was odd. He couldn't recall having been informed of a pending shift in weather conditions. And here in the digital world, all weather conditions were carefully scripted.

Pulling his coarse brown hood over his ears, Gennai pushed away from his desk and moved towards the doorway of his simple home. If there was indeed a thunderstorm approaching, after all, it was better to be safe than wet.

Crossing the threshold of his cottage, the young man was surprised to step out into sunlight. He had been absolutely certain that it had been thunder that he had heard...

A gentle breeze blew at the young man's long robe from the north, and it was in that direction that he turned. Hmm. Still nothing... well, nothing except a billowing gathering of clouds a long way off against the distant horizon. So distant that he would hardly make it out, in fact, but still it troubled him. Always in the digital world, weather systems moved from south to north and from west to east, but none had passed over his house in some time. Also there was the fact that, unless his eyes deceived him, the clouds were distinctly reddish in color...

There was something about that which seemed awfully familiar to him. Some little tickle in the back of his mind that he should be able to scratch...

The man's cool, serene manner fell from him at once as his eyes opened wide in alarm, the little fragment of a memory that had been silently gnawing at the back of his brain suddenly becoming a feral beast that tore savagely into his consciousness. A red cloud. An unexplained, unexpected... red cloud. In three bounding steps he was back inside the doorway of his home, in another two he was across the room and back in his seat.

Sweeping all of his research and work to the floor with one arm, Gennai quickly started tearing through his old books of digimon lore. While his mind was a veritable treasure-trove of information, he only kept in it things which might one day be practical or relevant, and so had to go searching for this bit of knowledge which had seemed to him quite irrelevant at the time.

Anyone who had every met Gennai would not have recognized him at that moment as the man started to veritably ransack his own home, tearing old tomes and new off of their well-organized shelves and peering at their titles, then casting them aside. Damn his poor organizational skills!

And then... there. On the top shelf, almost forgotten in a dusty, rather cobwebby corner it sat. Gennai gave a quiet cough as the dust and falling books settled around him, then stepped through and over them and reached for it. The title, written in digi-code, was Baby Digimon's First Nursery Rhymes and Stories. Authored by Elecmon. Gennai slowly flipped past other, unimportant stanzas, not even glancing at them until he came upon the one that he was searching for.

'Grendelmon'

Be careful and good, all you little digimon.

Obey your elders and learn well the rules.

Because if you commit the unforgivable sin

You face the anger of Grendelmon the cruel...

Gennai slowly licked his lips and shook his head. No. Tucking the book under one arm he turned and again left his cottage, only now he left it in a shambles. His head was bowed as his feet shuffled slowly towards the exit. That wasn't possible. Things were at peace now... at least on this side of the world. So it could not be him... it just couldn't be...

Grendelmon the holy. Grendelmon the punisher. Even during the sinister days of Devimon and the Dark Masters, Grendelmon had not come. Never had things gotten so bad that a new Genesis was the only answer. So why now?

The man tried to remain calm as he recalled everything that he had heard about this supposedly mythical creature during his time in this world. The essential basis for all Good in the digiworld. Every vaccine-type in existence was said to have a bit of his essence within their bodies, keeping them strong and bringing them life. But the creature's power of Good was said to be so intense that it could not... would not tolerate the existence of any evil. At all. And so he himself did not reside in the ordinary digital world, only those bits and fragments of himself that made up the vaccine types.

Gennai had, at one point in the past worked up what he thought was a fine parallel. In the world of the humans, a very, very long time ago, there had come a point where the world had become so corrupt that their God, the ultimate goodness, had been forced to almost obliterate the entire race of humans. Like a mathematics problem which had taken too long, an eraser had replaced more calculations as the answer. And so in one massive, worldwide flood virtually every human alive, good or evil, had been slain. According to the tradition of the digimon, Gredelmon's arrival would signal that depth of depravity for their kind... as well as a similar consequence.

The cloud was moving. Slowly and lazily, yes, but it was creeping along the horizon in his direction. Quickly the strapping young man snatched the children's book and one other that he thought might be of some relevance, then turned and slammed his door shut. Answers. He needed answers, and knew that he could not find them here. There were others who would know more... or at least, one other. And also, there was one far away, in another world, who needed to be told of this as well. He, of course, could pass it on to the other saviors of this land.

***************************

Izzy lay back on his couch, barely suppressing a contented sigh. He was so full that he didn't think that he could possibly eat one more bite of just whatever it was that Mimi kept stuffing him with. At the moment, he could almost wish for an appetite that could rival Tai's... almost. Whatever this stuff was that Mimi was cooking for him, it was like an explosion of delightful flavor inside his mouth every time that he took a bite. What a cook...

"Mimi, come on in here!" the boy called out with a good-natured groan, struggling to sit up from his reclined position. "You didn't fly over the entire Pacific Ocean to try to kill me with your cooking, did you?"

Mimi, wiping her somewhat greasy hands on the (pink, of course) apron dangling from her neck stepped slowly from the kitchen, an incredulous look on her face. "You... you don't like it?" she managed to murmur softly from between quivering lips.

Izzy blinked. Whoops. "No, no... Mimi," he said quickly, rushing across the room to grab at her (still greasy) hands. "What I meant by 'kill me with your cooking' was that I've eaten way too much already. Not that it isn't wonderful, 'cause it is... whatever it is. But I think that if I eat one more bite I'm gonna explode like a tube of nitro in the hands of an inept lab technician."

The girl stared at him, her brow furrowed.

"That's a bad thing."

The edges of Mimi's lips began to twitch slightly, and she reached up to pinch his cheek gently. "Next time, say what you mean." And with that gentle chastisement still dangling in the air between them, the girl's hand slipped off of the boy cheek and made its way past his ear and to the back of his head. If he'd had enough to eat, well... that wasn't the real reason she had made the trip anyway.

Izzy had to force his lips to stay pursed as he met her kiss instead of allowing them to spread out into a smile. As wonderful as the food (whatever it was) had been, Mimi's strawberry lip gloss was a hundred... perhaps a thousand times more delicious to the red-haired boy. It was therefore of very little surprise to him that his affinity for that particular fruit had increased exponentially during the past few years. But in this particular case, the genuine was no substitute for the artificial.

A cold, electronic 'beep' pulled Izzy's attention from the warm reality of the kiss. The boy's eyes opened a bit after having been closed against the bliss of Mimi's embrace and darted to the side table where his open laptop sat. His head and the rest of his body would have followed his eyes to the computer were it not for the fact that the girl had a grip like an iron vice on the back of his neck, refusing to let go.

Izzy tried to protest... not all too strongly, of course, since his heart was not really in it and since Mimi kept interrupting every other word with another kiss. "Mimi, that's... my computer... I've got... to go... I've got... mail."

The other pulled him even closer, her body pressing warmly against his as she stared dangerously into his eyes. "So what? You've always got mail."

The boy slowly walked Mimi backwards towards his computer as the girl continued in her unwavering quest to drown him with affection. After all she only had a few days left here in Japan, and intended to take full advantage of them.

Izzy peered over Mimi's shoulder and manipulated the cursor to where it needed to be, then clicked twice. After a few returned kisses to assure the girl that he was not totally ignoring her, he finally found what he was looking for. As he read, though, his eyes (which had until that moment before been so full of love and affection) turned cold and humorless. "Mimi, wait," he said, his voice now deadly serious and his hands quivering as he grabbed the girl by the shoulder and turned her face away from his and towards the screen.

The two stood there for a moment, silently, leaning over side-by-side as they both studied the text that seemed to leap out at them from all over the page. Izzy blinked, rereading a couple of the more dire passages several times until he was certain that he understood their meaning. When at last he was satisfied that he understood the rather cryptic message (at least, as well as he was able), he stood up straight.

Mimi turned her head and looked up at him. "Izzy? Wh... what does he mean? 'Say goodbye'? What for? Are they in trouble again? Why can't we help them this time?"

The young, red-haired boy did not answer, looking to the other side for a moment. He was confused, and more than anything in the world he disliked being confused. It was from Gennai, yes, but if it was a plea for help it was certainly worded strangely. Had a new evil arisen? It seemed unlikely with all that had happened, but knowing the digital world as he did Izzy refused to discount the possibility. And what did he mean the Northern Continent was already gone? Gone to where?

As Mimi fidgeted, Izzy pulled up a chair and sat down, pounding out a furious response to Gennai's message. If the digital world was indeed in trouble once again and help was needed, why wouldn't the man just ask? He had to know that they'd all be there in a flash if some kind of trouble had arisen... and why the despondent, hopeless feeling in his words?

****************************

Rio buried herself in the deep warmth of Matt's heavy coat as the climbed the stairs to his father's apartment, the frigid wind swirling about them as they went. To be honest, the chilly weather didn't really bother her all that much... well actually, she rather enjoyed it, but she didn't really mind Matt being overprotective of her. It gave her a warm, comforting sensation inside her heart, one which served to chase away the cold better than any furry jacket ever could. Just knowing that the boy cared... cared for her like no one else ever had... brought up a well of emotion so strong in the girl that she could almost cry.

She had also noticed that the blond-haired musician seemed to look down on the fact that the ever increasing wind was giving others a greater glimpse of her legs than he would have liked.

The girl looked up shyly at him from the depths of the long coat. "I thought you played very well tonight, Matt."

The other turned, flashing a broad grin with his chattering teeth. "H...h...had to. My m...m...muse was in the audience t... t... tonight."

Rio felt almost undeservedly happy. Life was so, so good for her since she had found her way back to him. She almost didn't know how to describe it. Her former life now seemed little more than a vague, ugly dream if she would only keep her focus on him. She was safe. She was loved. The pain, if still there, was well masked by Matt's affection and his fervent promise that nothing would ever hurt her that did not kill him first.

As Matt moved past Rio to open the door, both caught the faint sound of the phone ringing inside the apartment. The tall boy frowned as he checked his watch, at the same time fiddling with his set of housekeys. "Who'd be calling at this time of night?" he groused.

As he continued his struggle with the door, the ethereal head of Wizardmon poked through from the other side and peered out at the pair, startling them both for a moment. "It's Izzy, Matt," the little creature explained. "Best to hurry. From the tone of his messages, something's gone horribly wrong."

His fingers still numb from the frosty wind, Matt finally succeeded in getting the golden key into the stubborn lock and turned it quickly. A blast of warm air met both he and Rio as they stepped inside, the girl's dark brown eyes focusing on her partner as the boy made a valiant dash for the phone. "Wrong?"

"This will make the twenty-seventh time in a row that he has called, and would have been the twenty-seventh time for a message pleading for Matt to pick up the phone if he had not answered it. If you had heard the manner of his words, you would not have needed to ask."

"What?" Matt's incensed voice echoed from the other room.

Rio's heart leapt in alarm at the uncommon fury, the livid anger of the shout as she brought her fingers to her lips nervously, then crept after Matt into the living room. The sheltered feeling that she had been experiencing earlier shattered almost instantly at hearing the rage in his voice. Steadily... Remember, this is Matt. No matter how angry he gets, he would never-

"No!"

The girl winced like a dog that has been kicked once too often hearing the approach of its master. Behind his irate-sounding voice she could imagine another's... one that she could not bear to hear, or even to imagine. The dark-haired girl could feel her knees start to quiver, could sense the sweat forming on her palms and the hairs starting to bristle on the back of her neck. Despite certain knowledge of the truth that her eyes showed her, the deception of her ears was almost enough to tear open wounds long ago healed over.

"I'll be right over, Izzy. Did you call the others? Oh? Well, okay then. Just don't do anything 'til we get there."

Matt slammed the phone down on the hook, then leaned over with two hands on the counter as he closed his eyes and focused his breathing. Then, after a moment taken to calm himself, the boy turned back to Rio... whose skin was now more pallid than he had seen it in a very long time and whose eyes were narrowed tightly on him. Matt cocked his head to the side in confusion. "Rio? Are... are you all right?"

The girl forced a nervous smile, her eyes only daring to meet his for a moment before they sought out the floor. "Of... of c...c....course Matt," she stammered softly, swallowing after the words as if she could not continue without doing so. "I'm just worried... What's wrong?"

The other licked his lips, studying her closely. Now that had been a lie, the first one that he had heard from her since she had returned to him those ten months ago. But as much as he loved Rio and felt the instinctive need to help her, it would have to be on the way this time. The digiworld in danger again, only this time not from the forces of darkness, but of light? Gennai refusing help, demanding that they stay away? The Guardians of the digital world gone, and digimon by the hundreds dying without a fight? None of it made sense...

"C'mon Rio, we'll talk about it on the way." He eyes fell on her little, ragged partner. "You'd better come too, Wizardmon. This is gonna call for better answers than I can come up with on my own."

********************************

It was two hours later and well into the early morning hours when Matt and Izzy stood in the younger boy's bedroom, arguing in hushed whispers. Despite the knowledge that his parents knew full well about the digital world, Izzy still felt that this was a problem best handled by those of them that knew best... and that meant the children, of course.

"Izzy, I'm going!" Matt snapped under his breath.

The other suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "How, Matt? Every digital gate, all of them, have been sealed. Here, look for yourself." And the red-haired boy moved to the side so that his older friend could scan the map for himself, the map dotted with dead, dark indicators where there should have been sparkling red ones. "How are we supposed to help if we can't even get there?"

"I don't know!" Matt hissed in response. "You're the computer genius. You figure out a way to open them." The boy's paced back and forth across the room a couple of times, his face growing redder and redder with frustration at each step before he finally snapped, whirling on Izzy. "I can't believe that you're just willing to let it go like this!"

Izzy's teeth clamped shut, his eyes narrowing, and for a moment the room fell into a deadly silence. "I'm not," he replied, and for a moment the fire in the boy's eyes was kindled unlike Matt had ever seen before. "I've spent the last five hours trying to open a gate, in between trying to call all of you. I've tried every trick I know, but nothing... nothing is working. I even called Ken long distance to have him try his D-3. Nothing is working, Matt."

Matt caught his breath tightly in between clenched teeth... and then slowly let it out as he swallowed his angry retort. He knew Izzy was trying all that he could. He had seen a great deal of it in the short time that he and Rio had been there. Mimi, sitting on the boy's bed next to Rio, was almost inconsolable. The area around her eyes had turned a bright red color as tears continued to pour from them.

The blond-haired boy sat down between the girls, watching as Izzy once again started to type furiously in his computer and frustrated at his own inability to help. He could almost hear the cry of Gabumon as he waited on the other side of the closed portal for him to come... and now it looked as if he never would. The way that Gennai had explained it, no digimon could leave the digital world now. There was no escape from this 'Grendelmon'... there was only submission to his judgment. All of them, everywhere, were to be judged. The reason for it had remained unsaid, but...

Matt's bowed head suddenly snapped up, causing Rio to jerk her hand back in surprise. With a sudden look of enlightenment in his eyes the boy turned to the spirit of Wizardmon, who drifted slowly about the room... not unlike he was pacing.

"Izzy! Wizardmon!"

The red-haired boy turned quickly, blinking the sleep from his eyes. "What?"

"Okay, the gate won't open for us. Do you think it'd open for him?" Matt jerked a thumb at the ragged little creature.

Izzy opened his mouth to respond, then closed it quickly. Gennai had written that all digimon were subject to Grendelmon. "I... I don't know," he replied honestly. "I guess it should..."

"'nuff said. Wizardmon, you game?"

The little creature's eyes narrowed beneath his hat. After a moment, he nodded.

"Great," said Matt, standing up at once as the other's incorporeal feet drifted to the floor and 'walked' towards Izzy's laptop.

Rio went quickly to Matt's side, taking his hand. "Me too."

The boy shook his head, at the same time patting her on the hands. "No, Rio. No this is bound to be way too dangerous to bring you along. I promised to protect you, and in my mind that also means not throwing you headlong into the path of a monster that's gobbling up everything in its path."

The other smiled her response; a sly, somewhat devious smile. Her dark eyes narrowed, focusing on the tall blond in front of her. "But how can you protect me if I'm here and you're there, Matt?" She paused, allowing the words to sink in before continuing along another line. "Besides, Wizardmon won't go without me... will you, Wizardmon?"

The little creature inhaled a ghostly breath, about to agree with Matt and tell her unequivocally to stay here where it was safe, when he caught the look in her dark eyes. It was a look that told him that she needed this. She needed to prove herself. To once again be able to face fear and not blink from it. She was afraid, yes, but now she was ready to fight. Against Roan and the ghosts of her past she could not, but this was something tangible, something real, and the blood that ran in her veins, the same blood that had given rise to her megalomaniac of a brother, needed this fight. Or else she would never again be able to stand fast against her memories.

Wizardmon saw all this and more in one glance, and when he saw it he nodded. Something important had been lost when the girl had listened to Matt's enraged shouts some hours back... perhaps what little bit of a haven that he had crafted for her. "Indeed. She must come as well."

The look on Matt's face was angry, frustrated, and for an instant the girl thought that he would still prevent her from going. But then, after a hushed moment, he sighed. "All right, Rio, you can come. Just stay close to me, okay? The first time in the digital world can be a little bit... weird."

But just as he spoke that admonition, Wizardmon drifted another few inches closer to Izzy's computer. With a blinding red flash of its own accord the screen instantly lit up the entire room, every single one of the dead nodes around the world opening at once. Matt, knowing almost what to expect, grabbed for the girl's hand and leapt at once for the screen. Behind them, he could still hear Izzy's last cry. "I'll keep an eye on you as best I can!"

Seeing the three vanish, Mimi leapt up from her place on the bed and dashed at the screen. Her heart had been aching with the thought of never seeing Palmon or the others again... to have her die without her partner at her side seemed to be more than she could bear. But as the last of Wizardmon's tattered robe drifted through the screen, the bright red glow dimmed to black once again as all of the portals were once again sealed.

With a sorrowful cry the girl tumbled into Izzy's desk, knocking his reference books and pencil case to the side as she tumbled to the ground, weeping. Immediately the red-haired boy leapt up from his seat and knelt by her side, taking her head and holding her weeping eyes against his chest. "Mimi...? Mimi? C'mon, don't cry. Matt's there now. Everything will be all right."

The words were almost soothing to the girl, and would have comforted her at once if the tone of his voice had not said something entirely different...

********************************

Matt rolled to a stop as he found himself flung forward and to the ground on the other side of the computer screen, a massive, turbulent windstorm howling about his ears as he leapt to his feet and caught Rio as she followed him through the gate. The boy grabbed the girl, holding her tightly as a particularly savage gust of wind buffeted them, only to release her as the howling gale died down for a moment.

The girl's long, black hair whipped around her face as she looked at the blond-haired boy. "Well?" she asked, her voice loud against the wind. "Where to? What are we looking for, anyway?"

Matt didn't respond for a moment, looking around the area where the two had landed. The verdant area where they had been set was completely foreign to him, and he really hadn't had much of a plan to begin with. To Gennai's, he guessed. After all, it had been his e-mail which had started this whole thing. Even if the man was reluctant to have the children help this time, he evidently did know what the threat was... and was being oddly circumspect about it.

"There!" Matt shouted over the wind, pointing to a tall, grassy hill at Rio's back. The girl turned, holding down the hem of her skirt as she did so. "We need to get to the top of that hill so we can look around to see where we are!"

Wizardmon, at her side, seemed to be inordinately out of sorts. He glanced up at Matt, then to Rio and back again. "Something's not right here, Matt. This isn't where we're supposed to be."

The boy held up a forearm to keep the wind out of his eyes as he trudged forward towards the hill, his head bowed against the more massive gusts. "Tell me about it!" he shouted. "It's two o'clock in the morning! I should be home in bed!"

The little creature frowned at this response. That wasn't what he'd meant, and Matt knew it. "Rio," he tried again, his voice just a bit softer. "Be careful. This is all wrong. That portal, if anything, should have opened up into the desert. Not this!" he said, pointing his staff along the verdant horizon.

The dark-haired girl shivered within the confines of Matt's coat, the stinging cold making her nose start to run and her ears to ache as she trudged along behind the blond-haired boy. She was scared, yes, but she was going to fight. "Wizardmon! What is Grendelmon, anyway?"

Though he was still only spirit, the wind evidently was affecting the little digimon too as he was forced to hold down his fluttering hat with both hands. He shook his head once. "Just a myth. Something that the keepers of Primary Village crafted a long time ago to keep the newborn digimon in line. Supposedly, Gredelmon will come only when the digital world has become so evil, so corrupt that one digimon has committed the lone, only unforgivable sin. And they say that when he comes, no one will fight him. The vaccine types will vanish with his coming, their life-force returned to their source. The data types will bow to his righteous judgment. And the viral types will be too frightened to fight, too powerless to flee. Grendelmon will sweep over the everything, wiping it bare and allowing the digital world to begin anew. The rebirthing."

Rio was aghast. "He's going to destroy everything?"

The other shook his head as their little group now started the long climb. "Like I said, Rio, he's just a myth."

Matt scrambled up the few remaining feet of the steep hill, slipping once on the slick, fresh grass. Wizardmon would have joined him, but instead stayed behind with his partner as she continued to struggle up the side.

The blond-haired boy swallowed once as his eyes scanned the valley below his hill and the dark horizon far past it... and what he saw confirmed both Wizardmon's words and his own worst fears. At his feet was a valley bursting with beautiful green life. A lush carpet of grass and sweet-smelling clover, flowering bushes and young, sapling trees. But not one hundred yards to his left was a wasteland, the desert that the digimon had spoken of, with nothing but sand, sand and more sand as far as the boy could see. The dividing line between the two areas was stark and perfectly symmetrical, as though some giant artist had been painting and had suddenly come to the edge of his easel and been forced to stop.

On the horizon Matt could see a massive, billowy red cloud in the sky, creeping along slowly away from them as if it had just passed over this area. And the boy noticed that the visible limit of the cloud ran perfectly alongside... and indeed was creating, the boundary between field and desert. In the other direction, the cloud expanded as far as his eyes could see. It was as if they had been deposited on the most extreme cusp of the colossal mist.

"And Gennai's is on that side of it..." Matt sighed. "Figures."

Rio and Wizardmon looked up earnestly at the blond-haired boy, whose head now bowed in heavy thought. A few anxious moments later, as if he was uncertain about his decision but realized that he did not have enough time to think it through thoroughly, he looked up in frustration. The glare in his cold eyes was almost fierce and for a moment... just a brief moment, but a horrifying one for all that, Rio thought that she saw an echo of her dead brother therein. But then the moment passed, making her fear melt away like the recollections of a horrid nightmare and leaving just him. The one that she loved. Loved more than anything, or anyone.

"Wizardmon? From where we are now, how long do you think it'd take that thing to get to Gennai's house? Couple hours?"

The little digimon paused. Then... "At the most, I suppose."

There was a dire, momentary pause. "Wizardmon? Is that... that thing...? Is it Grendelmon?"

The other swallowed visibly. "Grendelmon... Grendelmon does not exist," he stammered, though the denial, spoken as it was, was as good as confirmation for the boy.

Matt nodded. "This way, then," he said, pointing into the wastelands of the desert that the massive cloud had yet to pass over. "To beat it to Gennai's, we're going to have to move a lot faster than this, and I know just the digimon to help."

***********************************

Garurumon stared straight ahead into the coming dawn, his head resting across folded paws. He had heard the news. Grendelmon had come. Somewhere, somehow, some digimon had committed the one, the only unforgivable sin. He himself did not know what crime was so evil, so heinous that any creature who learned of it could not bring himself to forgive the transgressor even in the face of certain death. Nor did he wish to. Only now it had been done, and to punish that one sinner, Grendelmon would wipe the face of the digiworld clean.

The creature had almost scoffed at the tales when he had been younger. He had been so completely certain that if such a creature did come, he would fight it 'til his last breath. But now, in the face of reality, he was stoic. One-quarter of the digiworld had already been cleansed, and that percentage increased by the second. The first signs had been that all of the vaccine types, everywhere, had vanished in an instant... as if some force had just taken them away in the space of time between breaths.

And then he had heard the truth. The Great, Crimson Cloud had appeared in the north. One digimon, somewhere, had finally chosen to do what no other evil in the entire history of their race had dared. Chosen, for only one who has the knowledge of what the one unpardonable sin is can commit it. And now the Cleansing was upon them.

No. He did not know why, but he would not run... he would not fight. The end had come, and he would accept it. His only regret was that he would not have the chance to say farewell to Matt.

"Garurumon!"

He could almost hear the voice of his partner now...

"Garurumon! Get up!"

The canine lifted his head up from his paws. Matt...? Here...? Now...? He would swear that his ears were deceiving him until a gentle wind wafted into his nostrils from the rear. It was Matt! His scent was the one that the creature could never forget. "Matt!" he exclaimed, his voice a low, throaty growl. "How did you get here? Why...? Why are you here?"

The boy ran an affectionate hand through his partner's thick fur. "In case you hadn't noticed, buddy, your world is about to be wiped clean by some big red cloud." He smiled. "I thought you might like to go help save it."

Garurumon slowed, then ceased his nuzzling of the boy's neck and dropped back down on his haunches, a sad, almost human look in his eyes. "Matt... I can't. That is forbidden. That cloud is Grendelmon. If we accept our fate then the cleansing will be quick and painless. Fighting will only make it more difficult. Painful."

Matt's jaw fell open. "What? You... you mean that you know about this and you're just going to let it happen? Because you're afraid of getting hurt?"

The other shook his bowed head. "No, Matt. Not for fear. Somewhere, some digimon has corrupted the world in some inexplicable, unspeakable way. Corrupted it so badly that it will soon no longer be fit to live in any longer. That is why Gredelmon has come. In order to save our world, he must first destroy it."

Matt was aghast, his fists balling up in anger at his side. "I don't believe I'm hearing this! You are just going to let this happen! Well not me, buddy! I gave up some of the best years of my life for this place, and I'm not going to just let it go like that. I'm going, with or without you, to stop that cloud. After that we can put right whatever went wrong with whoever he's after!" Tears were welling up in the blond-haired boy's eyes as he turned his back on the blue-striped wolf.

The boy's voice was trembling, holding back the terrible strain of emotions that he was feeling. He couldn't let the other see him like this. "Garurumon... please. You know how much we've sacrificed to keep this world together, don't you? How much we've all fought, suffered and bled to keep it alive? How many of our friends died? I can't let it end like this. Every digimon still alive out there right now, that's one digimon that I've bled for. That you've bled for. And I can't let one creature, no matter how good or evil, destroy it for all of you. So I am going to go. This place is a part of me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it go without a fight!"

There was a silence for a few moments, a deathly silence, broken only when the boy heard the soft padding of paws as they approached his back. And even when those footfalls stopped, and even when the enormous canine laid his snout on Matt's shoulder, the silence remained unbroken for another few moments. Then, softly...

"I won't be able to change into WereGarurumon, Matt. The strength that made me an ultimate is part of him now. It will be just plain, old me."

Matt turned, his eyes closed against the tears. He had never like to let anyone, even his best friend, see him cry. But he was able to open them again and to let the tears fall freely as he buried his face into the other's cobalt mane. "There will never be anything plain about you, buddy."

********************************

Rio blinked once as Matt returned, riding on the back of the enormous creature. Years ago she had also had a Garurumon for a partner, yet those the colors of that one had been so dark and drab compared to the bright blue brilliance of the one on whose back the boy now sat. The boy stroked the creature's neck as they approached slowly, his knees holding tightly to his partner's sides. "Garurumon, this is Rio. Rio? Garurumon."

The dark-haired girl edged closer to the beast and stretched one trembling hand forward towards the massive head. She flinched once as the canine bowed his head to sniff at her, then gave a short giggle as a large red tongue flashed forward from the mouth to lick that same hand. With her old partner, she would have had to act fast to avoid losing a finger if she had offered her hand to him like that.

Garurumon craned his head around to look at the boy. "Your scent is strong on her, Matt. Have you become mated and not told me?"

The boy's eyes widened and he unwillingly blushed in embarrassment. "Ah... ah... ahem. And you remember Wizardmon, of course."

The little ragged creature stepped forward and bowed, a bow which Garurumon returned. "I remember his sacrifice for our cause, of course. I am honored to once again fight at your side."

Wizardmon's eyes narrowed as he looked from Garurumon to Matt and back again. "Fight?"

Matt nodded once, and Garurumon turned his head to the side. "Why else did you come, if not to fight?"

The other opened his mouth to respond, then wordlessly allowed it to close again. Why, indeed? He had not, at first, expect to find here what they had indeed found. Despite what he had told Matt, there was no question in his mind that what they had seen had indeed been the epitome of the righteous of the digital world. Not only did such a fight seem certainly doomed to failure, there were also the moral implications of fighting against such a being. He had come for Rio and for her only, believing that this journey could be of help in chasing away her personal demons. But did that include...?

"Only as a last resort, Wizardmon. Let's get to Gennai first to find out what that thing wants. Maybe we can stop him without a fight. He's supposed to be after just one bad guy, right? Well, let's see if we can give him that bad guy. Maybe then he'll stop."

And then Rio knelt down by the creature's side, her fingers reaching forward to touch his cheek only to slide into the cool, vaporous mist that was Wizardmon's essence now. "Please, Wizardmon," the girl whispered at him, her voice somehow sad, pleading and combative all at the same time.

The other's eyes closed. This was suicide. There was no way to sugarcoat it. They were all going to die. Grendelmon would, in time, envelop the entire world, and there was no returning to the other one while the gates remained closed. Yet he also knew that the girl would go on with Matt, with or without him. If he had to die, he could think of no better place to be than at her side. He gave a ghostly sigh. "All right, Rio. We go. Together."

***********************************

Matt's lips were pursed together in deep thought as he stared at the ransacked chaos that was Gennai's apartment. Books, which obviously at one point had been stacked upon the high shelves surrounding the room, now littered the floor around them, making the boy have to almost wade through them to get to the man's desk. There was no evidence, no clue to make him wonder why the other had left in such a hurry. But then of course, Matt had an outstanding guess.

Rio stepped in behind him, her brow furrowed scornfully at the mess. "Gee, Matt. You must feel right at home here."

Matt bit his lip. Damn. This had been his one, best idea for help. The boy looked out the window to see the billowing, crimson mist towering before them and moving lazily this way. With Garurumon they could outrun it, of course, but to go where? They had, on their way to Gennai's cottage, passed by a great many individual digimon. And each of them, without exception, had proved useless. As Wizardmon and Garurumon had expected (both having heard the stories in their cribs) the other data types would not fight, each of them having accepted their fate. And the viral types, of course, were either paralyzed with fear or had suffered some sort of cataclysmic mental collapse. In any event, none of them could fight.

The boy kicked over a pile of books in frustration as he stepped back through the door. Outside, Garurumon rested on his haunches while awaiting the pair. Wizardmon floated at the canine's side, his back to the crimson storm as he steadfastly refused to even look at it. Despite his courage having been buttressed by the presence of Rio, he dared not take the chance of having it fail him should he turn.

"Matt?" Garurumon growled deeply.

"Nothing. He's gone, with no clue as to where or why he went."

Wizardmon peered up at the other. "I believe that we can guess the 'why'."

The boy did not respond as he bowed his head, trying to focus his thoughts. The night without sleep made it extremely difficult to do so, and he was not the most gifted strategist to begin with. The others were all looking at him, awaiting an answer... one which Matt simply did not have. He could only blame himself for not having planned for the eventuality that Gennai might not be at his house and having something else prepared. And now, while he pondered, the refining cloud drifted closer and closer.

"If only we knew what... well, who... he wanted."

A pitiful, wheezing gasp from just behind the cottage made all four turn as one. Garurumon crouched, ready to pounce as Wizardmon started to rub his gloved hands together, building up the static charge that he would need to conjure either of his two deadly weapons. Matt stepped in front of Rio and clenched his fists, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Perhaps it had not been Gennai, after all, who had ransacked his own cottage...

A tall, almost human-looking creature swathed in a thick, gray cowl stumbled around the edge of the cottage, leaning against it for support. The cape that was draped over his shoulders was in tatters and his face, again eerily human-like, was torn and bloodied. His hands, oddly, looked to be aged and wrinkled, as those of a very old man, yet his face (what they could see of it beneath the blood) looked young... perhaps just a few years older than Matt.

"Gennai!" the creature croaked loudly, slumping against the wall of the building and wincing in pain. Taking one hand he reached inside his cloak to his chest and, when he pulled it out again, found that it too was covered in a bright red blood.

Rio turned to Matt, who shrugged and shook his head in ignorance. Then both of them looked down to Wizardmon.

"I had thought all of those extinct..." the little creature murmured, placing his hands down at his side and allowing the static electricity to dissipate. When he glanced up and found the two teens staring at him, he elaborated. "He is a Hominiomon. They lived in the far south in the very early years of the digital world, and they're extremely tough." He paused for a moment, then finished. "But this one does not look to live that much longer."

The creature in front of them staggered once, then fell forward to his hands and his knees with a pained gasp. Rio, with a concerned look in her eyes, stepped forward and reached out a hesitant hand to the fallen digimon. Matt grabbed the girl by the upper part of her slender arm and would have stopped her, but an instant later relaxed his grip as he too recognized the other's helplessness.

Rio turned the battered creature over on its back, pushing back the cowl that covered its head. Its features, when examined more closely, were not as human-like as the girl had initially thought, but the similarity was still remarkable to her. The features of his face were flat and very shallow, almost to the point of being sunken inside his head in the case of the ears, and his drab hair was matted and filthy. "You... you are not... Gennai..."

"No," the girl whispered in response, smoothing back the other's hair. "No, I'm not, but I-"

The creature's head bowed and his body shook with an evident sob, a sob that turned into a poorly repressed fit of coughing in a moment. When finally it could speak again, the creature's gray eyes turned on Rio. "Don't let him get me. Please. Don't... don't let him get me."

The girl looked confused, her brow deepening into a crease. "O...okay..." It sounded like more of a question than an assurance.

The other grabbed frantically at one of Rio's hands, nearly crushing her slender fingers in his elderly yet firm grasp. A palsy shook his body with a tremor as he spoke, and the look in his eyes was almost forcing her to respond. "Promise. Promise me that you won't let him get me."

Rio bit down on her lower lip, studying the creature. The poor thing looked absolutely terrified. His eyes were widened and his breathing shallow and far too rapid. Then, hesitantly... "All right. I promise."

The Hominiomon's head sagged back into the girl's pale arms. "Thank... you."

But now Garurumon, instinctively feeling the need to protect the one to whom Matt was so closely linked, started to circle the pair slowly. His nose was active and his ears twitching dangerously as he examined the newcomer. "Why did you come in search of Gennai?" he demanded, his deep voice sounding even more wolf-like than normal. Matt, of course, knew what that meant. His normally placid partner was angry, and his more feral traits were rising to the surface in response to the emotion.

The other twitched in return, almost cringing beneath the gaze of the canine. "I... I needed something. Something that I hoped that he could provide to me."

Wizardmon watched the scene stoically, feeling the approaching darkness at his back yet still refusing to turn. Had the injured creature not been almost half-dead he would have been more attentive, since these creatures at their ultimate level were extremely wily and were said to be solid combatants as well. The anxiety that he felt from the cloud that continued to drift lazily towards them, however, was making it extremely difficult to focus on much else. Yet his mind was still active and quite potent, and from what had been said so far...

"From whom do you seek protection?"

As one, Matt and Rio's eyes flashed to each other, then together they turned to the approaching storm. Garurumon was now hovering almost directly over Rio and her injured ward. "From him, yes?" he snarled dangerously, his teeth bared at having already reached the same conclusion.

Matt waited for neither an affirmation or denial as he pulled his eyes from the red mist in a towering fury, stormed over and knelt between his partner and the injured creature. Grabbing the fallen digimon by the collar of his tattered top with two clenched fists and pulling him from Rio's lap into a sitting position, the boy's eyes flashed like a burst of cobalt lightening. His manner was much as Garurumon's was... feral and threatening. "What did you do?" he demanded, shaking the injured creature.

Rio's eyes were wide as she stared at Matt hovering over her, a look of untamed fury in his steely-blue eyes. She almost cowered away from the boy, her breath coming in short, rapid gasps. And then, right before her eyes, he snapped, pulling the creature further from her lap and right up into his own face. "Damn you! What did you do?"

"Matt!" Rio sobbed, cringing.

The boy fell away, confused, his fury with the digimon fading instantly in his concern for Rio. Dragging the Hominiomon's broken body out of Rio's lap and depositing it at Garurumon's feet, he knelt at her side and embraced her tightly, smoothing her dark hair as she clutched at him, weeping frantically into his chest. "Rio! What... what's wrong?"

The girl continued to cry without stopping, soaking the front of Matt's shirt with a veritable torrent of tears. The boy continued to whisper to her soothingly, to try to get her to calm down, but there seemed to be no consoling her. And then... "Matt!" Wizardmon whispered urgently.

"Wizardmon, not now!" the other snapped back in return.

"Yes, Matt. Now," Garurumon emphasized, his tone dragging the boy's attention away from the terrified girl.

Grendelmon was almost right on top of them.

************************************

Matt grabbed Rio's around the waist and boosted her up onto Garurumon's back, then readied to leap up after her. Wizardmon was at their side, still hesitant to look at the cloud which now drifted towards them and ready to swallow them in its deadly bank any moment now. Instead, he focused on the battered and bloodied creature still behind them. "What about him?"

"What about him?" Matt snapped back. "That thing wants him, it can have him. Maybe then it'll go away."

The Hominiomon looked vaguely in Rio's direction, his eyes apparently unable to focus. His breathing and his words were becoming increasingly raspy as he spoke. "You... can't... leave me. Please. You... you p...p...promised."

The girl's dark eyes drifted down to the ground as the words of the helpless creature convicted her. "That's right. I... I guess I did..."

"Rio, no!" Matt snapped at her in frustration. There was not much that the boy would not fall all over himself to do for the girl, but this was where he had to draw the line.

But then the creature reached inside his vest and pulled something out, showing it to the others. "M... my sin will not be erased with my death," he murmured to the others. "Grendelmon will still wipe this world clean to erase what I have done. Take me with you. Fulfill your promise, and I will explain." And the object which he held in his hand was a shiny, black-ebony colored digitama.

Matt was indecisive... but then, he had no time to be indecisive. And so, muttering an unheard profanity and with a capitulatory glance at Rio's pleading eyes, he nipped over to the side of the human-like creature and hoisted it (none too gently) up in his arms. Staggering under the other's weight over to Garurumon's side, the boy draped it over his partner's back just in front of the girl's legs. Then he slapped the blue wolf on the rump with one hand. "Go!" he cried.

Garurumon leapt forward a few feet, surprised, but then started off in a steady canter to the south. Matt and Wizardmon followed, the boy running as quickly as he could to keep up with the others. There was no way that Garurumon could keep up such a brisk pace with three of them on his back, so he could only hope that he would be strong enough to keep up with them until it came time to turn to the east. That had been the original idea, the thought being that Grendelmon would not pass over again an area that he had already 'cleansed'. They hoped.

The wind was increasing now, blowing with an intensity to match that which they had found upon first entering the digital world. At her back, Rio heard a clap of thunder explode from the crimson cloud of Grendelmon, startling her. "Tell!" she snapped down at the creature resting across her legs, her voice strained and harsh as she snatched the egg from its hand. "What did you do? Why is that thing after you?"

Wizardmon now left Matt to join his partner. "Yes," he echoed. "What is this egg? Where did you get it, and what has happened to its color?"

Blood oozed from the mouth of the creature, falling into the dust kicked up by the racing feet of Garurumon as he sped along, focused on trying to stay ahead of the cloud. As unhurried and deliberate as it had seemed to the group before, the crimson mist now seemed to be matching their frantic pace... perhaps even overtaking them bit by bit. The Hominiomon coughed. "This... this was my sin. As you noted, my friend," here he nodded at Wizardmon, "there are very few of my kind left. By now, I may be the only one. Some, like you, think that we are already extinct. We are dying out because it was decided long ago that we were too evil... too dangerous a species to be allowed to continue living in this world. And so it was that the guardian of the south, our mistress Ebonwomon, decided that we were to be denied existence."

The creature's words were bitter, more spite-filled than Rio had heard in a long time. "We were her favorites! Her most loyal servants, and her finest warriors! But then our brightest unwittingly stumbled upon the secrets of the gods... all of them. With those, in time, we would have become like gods! But she, jealous as she is, was not willing to let this happen. And so she stole from us... stole from us what should not be taken from any living creature. The right to produce offspring. No longer could our females conceive digitama; our dying were not being reborn. As the eldest of us passed away, our race began to slowly die off."

So enraptured were Roan and Wizardmon by the story, and so focused was Garurumon on staying in front of the cloud, that none of them noticed the subtle change in Matt's harried breathing as he trailed along just beside and to the rear of them. In the space between one step and another, his gasping of air had gone from feverish to desperate as he fought to stay up with them. Whether it was from fatigue and lack of sleep, or perhaps whether the cold weather back in the real world had done some harm to his lungs, keeping up with his friends suddenly became extremely painful to the boy.

He could feel the wind of the storm and the moistness of the cloud at his back. He could hear the thunder and the rushing of currents. He knew that he was failing, and failing fast. He knew that he would not make it to the point where they were to turn on his own... especially now that Grendelmon had increased his pace to match theirs. He knew that, unless he called for Garurumon to stop and let him ride, that he would fall in only a few moments.

The pain deep within his chest was intense. He could feel it choking him, making him want to stop and gag and gasp for air. Unless Garurumon could carry him too...

I won't call for him... I won't! If they stop it'll be too late, and Grendelmon will take us all! He knew this to be true, and the knowledge made him wince against the pain, both physical and emotional.

This isn't right... this isn't supposed to happen! Even the boy conceded that the voice in his head sounded a bit like it was whining. I'm the good guy. Things like this aren't supposed to happen to the good guys. He wanted to live. He wanted to go back to the real world, to see his friends. To be with T.K. To live with Rio. Happily ever after...

"Rio? I promise you that nothing will ever hurt you that doesn't kill me first!"

What a stupid way to keep his promise.

The boy missed one step, then another, and then was on his face in the black, earthy soil.

The others heard the pained cry that broke from his lips as he dropped. "Matt!" Rio screamed, turning her head.

Garurumon slid to a halt and turned. "No!" the boy shouted at the canine as he lifted his dirty face from the ground to watch him stop. The cloud above him... "Get going! Now! Leave!"

The other hesitated. And Matt knew... Garurumon would not abandon him. Rio was struggling to get off his back. If they didn't start again soon, she would get down and then...

"I don't... need your help!" He staggered weakly to his feet, blood pouring from the cuts on his hands and arms. "Get her out of here!" And with that he bent over and picked up a small rock, throwing it weakly at his best friend, his partner, much as one would at an ordinary dog to get it moving.

The canine backed off a step, then lifted his voice and gave a mournful, lonely cry. And then, while Rio still struggled to get off, he whirled and was back to being the fox staying a short step ahead of the hounds. Matt nodded weakly, knowing the meaning of that howl. A tear dripped from his eye onto his smiling lips. "I know. I love you too, buddy. Keep her safe."

The boy closed his eyes against the tears. He could feel the wind swirling at his back. He would meet his death alone, without friends... but it was what Rio had written to him a long time ago that was his last thought, staying there to give him courage in the last moments when nothing else would.

But then, perhaps I am not so alone. Because of what we have shared, I will never be…

"Rio... I love you..."

***********************************

Rio was weeping uncontrollably by the time Garurumon slid to a halt in the verdant fields that Grendelmon had already 'cleansed'. Numbly, the girl tumbled off of the back of the blue wolf and sank to her knees, her eyes distant and staring back in the direction from which they had come.

At the girl's back, the Hominiomon sagged and fell off as well. His filthy gray hair was now wind-blown and covered his face in ragged, matted tendrils. Garurumon, now freed from the weight of the pair, turned to face him. "I do not know what it is that you have done, nor do I care any longer. Let it be sufficed for me to say that your life has been purchased for you at the cost of the best creature that I have ever known. Because of that, I plead with you to do the most that you can with the time that he has won for you."

And then the blue canine turned to Rio, his head bowed in the most human expression of grief that the girl had ever seen from a digimon. After a moment of silence, he murmured something that sounded to the girl like, "I would have given anything for him." And then, now much more dog-like than human-like, the creature placed his snout against her hand and nuzzled it once... then twice... then finally gave it a brief, gentle lick with his rough tongue.

Finally, much as Rio imagined that the wind would be if it took on a corporeal form, the other darted swiftly off in the direction from which they had just come. Right back into the crimson teeth of Grendelmon. Rio blinked, wondering for an instant what he was doing. Then... "Garurumon! No!"

The girl stumbled to her feet and, while knowing that she had no chance at all of ever catching him, would have chased after the creature if Wizardmon had not been there to stop her. "No, Rio. Let him go. He would not come back even if you could catch him, and he would be scarred for the rest of his life if he did. His kind considers it a panacea for all of their earthly wrongs to die alongside one that they honor and love. It... it is their way..."

Rio opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. In silence she watched the powerful hindquarters of the beast propel him across the verdant landscape, then continued to watch in silence as he disappeared into the blood-red horizon. And now, if it had not before, the enormity of her loss crashed down upon her like a smothering blanket of despair. Matt was gone. The one who had saved her life... the one who had redeemed her soul from darkness... gone. What did she have without him? He was everything that she had built her life around since that day when she had tried to end it during a period of emotional anguish three years ago. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine him still at her side. Hear him. Touch him...

"Rio...?"

The voice was gentle, and as such barely even brushed against the nothingness into which the girl was trying to drift into. She couldn't take the pain any more. Matt had been the only salve for it, and now he was gone... and that knowledge would only bring more and more and more pain. It seemed so unfair. She had already suffered much more than her fair share of pain in her life. Why should she now be asked to bear more?

"Rio, please..."

Dear God... If you really are there, like T.K. keeps saying that you are, end this now. I have nothing left to give. There is nothing else that you can take from me but my life, and I beg you to take that now. I care nothing for the pain, whether easy or agonizing, only let it be swift. There is no greater agony that I can suffer than that which I will know if I open my eyes again.

"Rio Kuroda!"

The girl felt her consciousness being pulled away from the nothingness into which she willed herself and back into the damned, agonizing grasp of reality. The reality where Matt was dead. Where memories of Roan and a stolen childhood still haunted her. Where the perpetual scars on her back still throbbed painfully at a moment's notice. She clutched at the oblivion, wanting nothing more than to stay there until she died from grief... if that were even possible. But then, if it were, surely it would have happened by now.

Rio's dark eyes unwillingly blinked open, staring into the dark, blood-red mist in front of her. Even as her groggy mind wandered back to her body, she realized that something was wrong with that. Grendelmon should not be here yet. They had had it all planned out...

"Rio! He's following us!"

The girl smiled, though somewhat ruefully. Her prayer had been answered.

Wizardmon frowned at her back. He could feel the strong emotions as they flowed from her, making him rather uncomfortable. He could never recall ever having been even half so close to a creature as he was to her, close enough to know without words what they were feeling. The knowledge haunted him...

"Rio... I do not believe that I have the words necessary to express my sorrow for what you are feeling. All I can do is ask you to try to live, if only for a little while longer. It may be that we are the last chance for this world, even as poor a chance we are. Matt loved our world, loved it so much that he was willing to die for it. If nothing else but to honor his memory, will you not at least try to finish what we have started?"

The girl turned to face her partner. She was without Matt. She was lost. She was broken. But still... she was a Kuroda. The girl's back straightened and she turned to face the Hominiomon, a tiny ember blazing with intensity in the sooty hearth of her eyes that she locked on the creature. "Your race began to die off..."

The creature looked at the human girl, not understanding. Rio's brow was furrowed tightly together, though whether in anger or concentration it was hard to discern. "And so? You did what? What did you do that he hunts you? What was your crime? Why can it not be forgiven, and why did you seek Gennai?"

The Hominiomon stared up at the other, incredulous. "Now? You want me to explain all of this to you now? Turn around and look at that! He's coming! He'll be here any second now!"

The girl responded with a smile, though a cold, emotionless smile that made the battered creature want to catch whatever breath he had left and hold onto it tightly. Wizardmon, too, seemed a bit unnerved, not recognizing the look. It was not one that he had ever seen from her as long as they had known one another. Indeed, there were very few who had ever seen that look from her, but those who had had never forgotten it. Even Matt, though it had been a long time since he had seen it on her face and had hoped to never see it again. This was the Rio that had been her brother's unwilling lieutenant. Who had been swayed over to his dream of power, so much that she was almost oblivious to the hell that he had put her through. This was the girl who was her brother's sister. "Then you'd better talk quickly," she said coldly.

The creature seemed caught up in that gaze, as well as what was steadily approaching him from behind the girl's back. He swallowed deeply. "Our... our race was dying out. Ebonwomon had targeted our race for extermination by attrition, and it would have succeeded if not for our advanced technology. As it was, we were able to extend the lifespan of our people in the hopes of living long enough to take what we had learned about the digitama to try to create our own."

There was a momentary pause as the other once again glanced at the steadily advancing Grendelmon. "We succeeded..."

"At least, in a manner of speaking. For though we could not create digitama, we did find a way to corrupt those of other races to produce our offspring. That is what I have here," he said, again producing the shiny black egg. "This, in time, will hatch into a Jellimon, and will eventually become the start of the next generation of my people."

Wizardmon caught his breath, glaring at the other creature. "You... you take the innocents... the unborn... and force them to become like you? Stealing their souls? Their free will?"

Rio frowned. For she, too, had once known an innocent who had been forced to become a monster at the hands of another one. "And that... that is your crime. The one for which you cannot be forgiven? Because all of the digimon, fearing what you will do to their eggs, will feel the same as Wizardmon?"

The other turned his face away, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "That is evil, but not so evil as this world has had to deal with before. My crime-" He paused, his voice seeming to fail for a moment. "My crime was that I have already inflicted this upon every digitama... everywhere. I discovered the secrets of what brings this world to life, and into the four winds scattered the seed of my people. And when Grendelmon discovered what I had planned, he came to me in my dreams with a warning. For three consecutive nights he came, and three consecutive times I spit in his face. If he would allow Ebonwomon to destroy us then to hell with him, and I told him so."

"Now all digitama, everywhere, from now until the dawning of forever, will be ours."

Wizardmon was clearly shaken, his eyes incredulous, his breathing shallow. Then, slowly and after a painful moment, he nodded. "I see. Then it is true. I had not thought it possible, but truly this must happen. Grendelmon must come... he must indeed cleanse the world. That is beyond unforgivable... that is beyond evil. In my worst nightmares I could not even dream to imagine such a crime. You have stolen infants from their parents and alienated parents from their children. You have corrupted the souls of the fallen to evil before they could be reborn. You have stolen from every digimon who lives the hope to be reborn as something greater, all while ignoring the words of the one who would have justly stopped you. Yes, then, let him come. For the sake of this world, he must come."

Rio ignored her partner's grim diatribe. "And Gennai?" she demanded.

The Hominiomon closed his gray eyes slowly. "I had thought the vision of Grendelmon a false one. I, like all of my people, considered the tales of the 'unforgivable sin' a sham. Surely there was one digimon, somewhere in this world, whether to save their own life or for whatever other selfish or noble reason that could offer me absolution for what I had done. It was only after that I was turned on and beaten by any... by all... that I asked for forgiveness from that I came to realize the truth. For we consider our right to be reborn in our own image after we die something that is inviolate, and I had been so long in thinking of my own people that I had not considered the response of the others. Not one digimon, even the most vile virus-type to save his own life, would even say that they would be the one to absolve me of my guilt."

The creature looked at Wizardmon, who had turned his back on him in aversion and was now facing the approaching mist with a stoic, accepting look in his eyes. "But Gennai," he continued, "is not one of our kind. I had thought that he might be one who could say, and mean it, that he would forgive me."

Rio said nothing for a time. Then, after a long pause... "I see."

The creature looked up to her, then nodded towards Wizardmon. "His was, by far, the most civil response I received."

The wind was approaching steadily now, though whether Grendelmon was the cause or whether his movement resulted from it, Rio was uncertain. Her dark hair, black as the raven's wing, trailed out behind her as she turned to face the approaching doom without even the hint of emotion in her eyes. The Hominiomon gave a muffled cough, really a gasp, that told Rio that his death -- Grendelmon or no -- was imminent. "And you?"

The girl turned back to face him, her pale skin seeming to adopt Grendelmon's crimson light. "Why should it matter to you? You will be dead within the hour one way or another, and both of us know it. You have stolen the innocence of a world of creatures. I, too, once had my innocence stolen from me by one who cared for nothing but himself. This world means nothing to me. Wizardmon had accepted what is to come, and the one whom I loved more than even my own life has already fallen beneath the crush of that beast. Now I have prayed for my death as well, and it is upon me."

The other still would not look at the human. "I... I fear what is to happen if he is the one to bring about my death. The stories... they promise suffering. Endless, unspeakable suffering for the one who has brought him to our world. These things I was brave enough to face when I doubted his existence. Now that I believe in him, I believe in those as well."

Rio was no great judge of speed or distance, but even she could tell that the cloud would envelop them within five minutes. "It's no less than you deserve. If they," here she waved her hand across the horizon to indicate the world full of creatures, "whom you have wronged will not forgive you, how impertinent would it be of me to offer you solace?"

The creature stopped. This was his one, last chance, and he knew it. One whom he had not wronged could, of course, not forgive him for others. But... "You can. You can because, with the death of the boy, I have wronged you as well."

Reality assaulted Rio with a cold slap across her pale cheek, and she gave a gasp as she felt it. That was true. This was all his fault. If it weren't for him, Matt would still be alive. In fact, right now, both of them would be safe and warm in their beds at the Ishida apartment. Matt's beautiful yet angry voice would never have reminded her so painfully of her sadistic brother, a comparison that she would now find it almost impossible to forget. Were it not for this creature... everything would still be perfect. At least, as perfect as it could be in her imperfect world.

You were forgiven. For your crimes, for trying to murder Matt. And his brother. And Kari. For trying to corrupt her brother. Despite what you had done to him, Matt forgave you. He saved your life, he took you in, even when he had no reason to. He redeemed your soul from the darkness when even you would have said it was unredeemable, for no reason other than his decency. The love came after...

She had been alone, with no one to care for her or to look out for her. Just a lost soul waiting to die. What had Matt seen in her? How could he have done it? He didn't have to act to see her punished for what she had done to him and his friends... simply not acting would have been enough. And yet he had gone out of his way to save her, even when she did not want to be saved, and afterwards had gone beyond even that to be a friend to her when she had no one.

Of course. Forgiveness is not about the sinner's heart. It is about the victim's...

Rio whirled to face the fallen creature, not seeing Wizardmon suddenly caught and dissolved in the wake of the crimson mist behind her. "What you have done is evil. There is no other way that I can think to describe your corruption of untold numbers of the most innocent of lives. You have brought about the end of countless souls in this world, including the one that I loved better than I know how to say. But I, too, have done evil in my life, and I was forgiven for mine." The girl caught her breath, making one last, desperate push for sincerity. If she did not mean it, she could not say it. Like she could not say it to the ghost of her brother that haunted her dreams. And then... "So I can say that, if you will accept it, that I do forgive what you have done to me... from the bottom of my heart I forgive you."

There was a brief gust of wind at the girl's back, and a moment later the ashen-faced creature's head sank backwards on to the ground. Rio, for a moment, thought that a weak smile had appeared on his wan lips, though it may have been her imagination. "Thank... you..." he exhaled, his voice full of both weariness and relief. And with those words he closed his eyes, clutched the dark egg to his chest, and died.

It was several moments later that Rio realized, inexplicably, that she herself was still alive. Surely the haunting red mist should have consumed her by now, as it had both Matt and Wizardmon. Had the Hominiomon been wrong? Or lied? Did Grendelmon leave with his death and not continue his cleansing of the digital world?

Rio felt movement at her back. And when she did not turn to acknowledge it, she heard a voice as well... a voice that was as massive and baritone as the loudest clap of thunder, but was somehow also as gentle as the softest breeze. She couldn't explain it except to say that it just... was. "I cannot."

Now the girl did turn, Matt's coat falling from her shoulders as she found that it was no longer as deathly cold as it had been before. In front of her was a hazy silhouette, a reddish, misty form vaguely in the shape of a human, one which her eyes could just not seem to focus on. She, of course, did not question what it was. She was smarter than that. "Why?"

Grendelmon's body gave a gentle glow which Rio took to be something of a sigh, then moved to the side of the fallen Hominiomon. "My purpose," he began, in a voice again somewhere between a whisper and a roar, "has always been twofold. The digimon think of me simply of a nursery rhyme now, but in the beginning I was created for one purpose and one purpose only. There would be a time, the Maker foretold, when such an evil would be unleashed upon the digiworld that no one, no matter how great or strong or dedicated, would be able to stop it. My purpose was to put an end to that evil and to put right what it had corrupted."

"Countless, untold years I have waited for that evil to arrive. And I have watched in sadness as evil after evil has arisen in this world, only to be stopped and beaten back again and again. For despite the pain that was brought by those evils, there was always hope for my people. The hope that, even if they fell in a battle against a global malevolence, that they would always be reborn someday and would see their fallen friends resurrected as well. Nothing could ever change that, of course..."

Rio nodded. "I understand."

The other gave a brief flash of surprise. "Do you? For all creatures, digimon and human alike, the body is a temporary home, but the soul is omnipresent. Until now, until this moment, evil could batter, enslave... even kill the body, but could never touch the soul. That is a power that is reserved for creatures of the highest authority, and was never meant for mortals. But what he has done will inexorably alter the souls of, eventually, every creature in this world. Every one of them that dies will now have their soul corrupted at the very moment of their rebirth. In time, diversity will no longer exist. Vaccine and data types will no longer exist. In time, all creatures in the digital world will be either a Jellimon, a Slugmon, a Pygmymon, Bedouimon or Hominiomon."

A few moments later the words sank in, and Rio stood staring at the other with a growing horror in her eyes as she spoke. "And you can't... can't... fix it?"

The other's voice, which had been sounding increasingly fierce, now became more gentle. "No. No longer. As I said, my purpose had been twofold. The power that I was entrusted with was given to me to both punish the one who had perpetuated the unforgivable sin and to correct what he had done. When I saw what was happening on the digital world, I knew this to be that sin. And I was right... for a time. No digimon, ever, would willingly sacrifice the rights to his soul. And none of us would willingly forgive one who had taken it from us. Gennai, the one human perpetually in this world, went to Azulongmon and, once the situation was explained to him, would not forgive this creature either."

"We had thought to keep all other humans out by sealing the digital world. In truth... we had forgotten about Wizardmon's ghost, and that it must return... as must all digimon... when I appeared."

Rio's lips were quivering. "So I... I..."

Now the voice of the creature, past even gentle, was kindly. "You were an accident. The rules have been laid down, and even if they have been circumvented in error, I cannot break them willingly to reverse that error. I am a creature of law, and as such must follow the Law. If I cannot complete my entire task, neither may I complete a portion of it."

Rio sank to her knees, the horror of what she'd unleashed with such an innocuous-sounding absolution to the creature threatening to overwhelm her. She stared straight ahead into the heart of the digital world, where Matt had fallen and where Garurumon had followed, a fountain of tears pouring unchecked from her dark eyes. "Then h... he died for... nothing..."

Grendelmon watched the girl sorrowfully for a moment, then knelt, placed a finger in the ground at her feet (which, oddly enough, was now sand instead of the green field which the other's presence had created before) and started to draw. Then he stopped, stood, and nodded to the girl. After a moment to let her study what he had drawn, he spoke. "Do you understand?"

Rio swallowed deeply, trying to focus on the image beyond her tears. The sigil of Matt's friendship. And one other...

"Your own, of redemption," the creature said, his voice once again deep.

"But... but Matt is dead."

"But have you not listened to one word that I had said about the death of the body and of the soul? The two of you are bound together as one, you have been since the moment that his spirit wound its way through the darkness surrounding you to pull your soul back into the light. You are one whose body was alive but whose spirit was dead until Matt redeemed you with his friendship... a friendship which later became love. And when one has the power to redeem a soul simply out of friendship, something very special is created."

And now, inexplicably, the drawings in the sand drew closer together until one was interspersed on top of the other... or perhaps they were within one another. Grendelmon explained. "To forgive a sinner his wrongs takes strength, takes maturity. To forgive the sin itself-"

"Takes... Grace..." Rio finished with a quiet sigh.

Grendelmon almost glowed with pleasure at the girl's answer. "And that is a power as strong as Faith. As judicious as Wisdom. As principled as Conviction. You may, when you return to your world, seek out the words of the only One to have ever known those four great principles at one time. They may offer the solace that your own aching soul needs."

Rio looked up. "I... I don't understand..."

It seemed to the girl that the other was fading now, slowly vanishing from sight as if small bits of his essence were being scattered on the wind. "You will, I trust... If you do not, then look for guidance from the one whom you will, in time, call 'brother'. He has the answers, or will... again, in time."

Rio still did not understand. All that she knew was that, in saving it, she had just succeeded in killing an entire world. And that Matt was dead. And that she was lost, and tired, with no way home, and that...

"What I have done will be undone. A human has saved our world, now let a human mend it." And then, with a blinding flash, the creature was gone. Gone entirely, but for one miniscule piece of his crimson body, which now solidified and dropped into the sand at the girl's feet. Rio knelt and picked up the object, peering at it incomprehensibly. It was small and smooth, rather gem-like in a way, with an intricate design carved into its surface. She would have puzzled over it, would have examined it further, but at that moment...

"Rio!"

Undone...

The girl looked up, not understanding, not daring to believe...

"Matt?"

"Rio!" the boy's voice rang out again gleefully from the west, and in that direction she turned.

There was Garurumon, racing towards her with paws that barely touched the ground with each massive stride. And there, on his back and leaning forward against the rushing wind but still with a smile on his beautiful face, rode Matt Ishida.

"Matt!" the girl screamed again in response, placing the little stone in her pocket and rushing towards the pair, arms outstretched as if she would catch both boy and wolf up in one massive embrace. But when her back had been turned, she failed too to notice that Wizardmon had now appeared. But no longer the ghostly, transparent Wizardmon that she had known and had come to trust and love. Now he was solid, he was real; a rebirth that had not required the journey to an egg and back. The creature smiled, not wanting to forestall her joy. "Go to him," he murmured.

The girl delayed not one moment, turning and dashing in the other's direction. Garurumon apparently saw the violent collision which was imminent and checked his stride, turning to the south and allowing Matt to leap from his back and continue in the mad dash towards the girl. A collision was still imminent, of course, but the creature doubted seriously that there would be any violence involved.

The moments in which it took to reach the boy seemed to be the longest moments of the girl's life, the sand dragging her down at every step. And so Rio, not pausing for even a moment, managed to kick off her shoes in mid-stride and continue in her mad dash towards love.

"Matt!" the girl exclaimed as she collided with the boy, veritably tackling him back onto the sand with the force of her embrace. Together the two fell, Rio breathlessly showering the boy's beautiful face with a torrent of kisses both large and small as her dark locks intertwined with Matt's golden ones, providing a momentary shelter of privacy for the lips that veritably hungered for one another.

Both the two were giggling, crying, kissing and trying to talk all at the same time, neither being able to decide just which of these actions was the most important at the moment. Matt, at the moment, thought that laughter was somehow the most appropriate, Rio was leaning towards crying. In truth, both were probably incorrect, but the pure joy at having been reunited when they should have been lost to one another forever made that rather unimportant in the end.

Both were panting furiously by the time that the two had decided that rolling around on the sand involved quite a lot of... well, sand, in one's clothing and stopped. For the moment. Both children then sat up, though neither took their eyes off of the other for a long time afterwards.

"Matt? What... what happened?" Rio queried, shaking her head as tears of disbelief continued to roll down her cheeks.

For the first time since they had met in that fierce embrace in the middle of the desert, the look of pure joy was erased from Matt's face to be replaced by one of confusion. "I... I don't really know, Rio. One minute I was there, on the ground, watching the four of you run and then there was... nothing. Not darkness, not silence... just... nothing. And the next thing I knew, Garurumon was there and knew where you were..."

And then Rio frowned, looking on the edge of tears. "I... I failed, Matt. I messed everything up. I let the Hominiomon die, and forgave him before he did. Forgave him for starting this whole thing and getting you killed. And then Grendelmon was there, and said that he couldn't fix everything now because... because..."

Matt pulled the girl close, letting her cry into his shoulder. "They're all going to die because of me, Matt!" she wailed.

The boy, not having heard any of the conversations since his 'death', remained confused. But still he held her tightly against his body. "Rio... I don't know what happened here. But I know that you didn't fail. The whole reason that we came was to stop Grendelmon from eating the digital world. I guess, whatever you did, you stopped him. Now we can go back and talk to the others and try to figure out a way to fix whatever else has gone wrong. I won't believe that anything too evil can come from intentions so kind. "

It was a few moments before Rio's crying slowed, then came to a stop. Then she looked up at the boy, her eyes still red and tear-filled, but the look on her lips was more neutral than anything. Matt was right... she supposed. If she hadn't succeeded entirely, neither had she exactly failed. And she was still alive. And so was Matt. And Garurumon. And Wizardmon. The last even more than before. And Grendelmon wouldn't have told her to mend it if it couldn't be mended... would he?

"Matt?" the girl asked in a small voice.

"Hmm?"

"I think I'm ready to go home now..."

***********************************

It was a week later when Rio Kuroda, now accompanied by Matt Ishida, again stood over the lonely marker that she had set up in memory of her fallen brother. And with Matt's arm around her shoulders, and remembering what she had learned about forgiveness, the girl knelt in front of that memorial.

"I guess everybody has a reason for what they do, Roan. I'd like to think that, somewhere in your heart, you had some reason for doing what you did. I confess, it used to give me some comfort to think, now that you're dead, that you were being punished because of the misery that you caused to everybody. But I can't be like that, Roan. I can't hate you anymore. Because I know that, wherever you are now, you can create no more evil, and can cause no more pain."

"You are my brother, Roan, and in the end I don't know if we were all that different from one another. The truth is that, after the first time we fought with Matt and his friends, our paths diverged. We were both hurt and lost, both alone for the first time. But I found my way to Matt, and you found your way to the fallen angel. I have to wonder, if our positions had been reversed, if things would not have turned out differently than they have. If you wouldn't be the one standing over my grave now, praying for my soul."

"Time will heal all wounds, Roan, and those that you've left on me will fade after time, too. So if you, wherever you are, can hear me, take what solace you can in the knowledge that at least one whom you have wronged has forgiven you your sins. And also know that, though it may be past the time where it will matter, that I pray nightly for your soul."

And then the girl stood, feeling again safe and secure with Matt's arm around her shoulders. The snow continued to fall, again covering the surface of the monument that Rio had just wiped clean, but still her dark eyes could make out the chiseled inscription on the smooth, stone face.

Roan Kuroda -- 1982-2001

Hebrews 9:22 'The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.'

Now and forever your loving sister,

Rio