Litanya: Digimon does not belong to me and it never will. This is NOT a historical account of Gallipoli. It is in an Alternative Universe and so the things that Tai says are NOT facts about the real Gallipoli. I cannot stress that enough.

Wars of the Heart

Chapter 2: Journals and Piano Lessons

Dear Journal,

It's the first day of my journey. I'm on the ship, on my way to war. I'm writing this so that if anything happens, someone will send this back to my sister and she can read this. I don't know if that'll comfort her, but she has a right to know, I guess. I'm missing her already and I haven't even been away for a day. I just know that something is going to happen and I'm not going to see her for a long time as a result. War is not a good thing, or something that can be taken lightly. If it wasn't for Matt I wouldn't even be here. Stupid Matt. But someone had to stop him from going and save Sora from heartbreak. Gosh, what an idiot I am. But I've made a few friends here already. Joe and Izzy are both seventeen and they have known each other for a long time. When I asked them why they joined up for the war, they told me that they wanted to travel, but they knew that ordinarily their parents would not let them. I think that Joe's dad was also pushing for Joe to go, but I'm not too sure. And Izzy has not said anything about his parents. Anyway, so far that is all that has happened to me, so there is no use in writing more.

He laughed a little bitterly and turned the page, wanting to know what had happened next. It was Tai's journal. Someone had found it and had brought it back to Kari. T.K was only reading it because he missed the older Kamiya brother. Tai's threats had been fun to dodge and the teenager really missed him. Everyone did. Even his old under 8s team remembered their former coach with grief over his death. Sora had taken on the duty of coaching the team, but it wasn't the same. Sure, Sora knew the game inside and out as well as Tai did, but he had coached them a certain way, and as much as Sora tried, she knew that she could never fill his place. T.K stopped his wandering thoughts and turned back to the book in front of him. Kari had warned him that it was short, but he didn't expect it to end on the third page.

Dear Journal,

This is the second time that I have written here, but I have been away for… just under half a year. It was my birthday last week, but… it wasn't all that good. The people here celebrated my eighteenth birthday, but it is only my seventeenth. They just haven't picked up that I'm lying yet. We landed at Gallipoli today. God… we landed here. I bet that coming here made everyone change their minds about war. Now everyone still alive knows that it is the most terrible thing that anyone could witness. Sure, the training was easy and everything, but actually fighting is a different story.

We had to come ashore in little boats. That part was okay… well, using the boats was fine. But the landing was a disaster. They seemed to know that we were coming. The Turks knew that we were coming. And the place where we were landing was next to a big hill. They hid there. They could see when we were coming, but we could not see them. They definitely had the advantage. The British with us ended up in the most trouble. They were all too disciplined to scatter their attacks. We Aussies, we just ran, fighting those we needed to. … Many good people died today. We tried to save all of those we could, but in many cases it was in vain. Trying to save someone whilst you are dodging a volley of bullets is hard work. We also try to save as many of the 'other side' as we can. We figure that there is nothing wrong with them other than the fact that their government hates ours. Not very much of a big deal if you ask me. They just probably want to save their families.

I don't really want to go into much detail about today. It wasn't really a very nice day that I'll ever want to remember. I just hope that tomorrow it won't be as bad…

The journal ended at that point. There was nothing else in the whole book. Obviously Tai wasn't all that keen on keeping that journal, otherwise he would have written everyday. All this gave them was that he had still been alive on the 25th of April. He must have died after that then. The person, or people rather, that had sent it back to Kari had been two young adults. They had come to the Kamiya's apartment; one limping rather badly and another on crutches…

F L A S H B A C K

T.K and Kari were listening to the radio in the Kamiya's apartment, with Sora cleaning the kitchen. She had said that she was bored with nothing to do. Kari had told her to listen to the radio with them, but she hadn't. Ever since she had read Tai's letter, Sora had not been able to sit still, so she had offered to clean the kitchen. Kari had not been able to stop her. As Sora was drying the last plate there was a knock on the door. Kari jumped up to get it, curious as to who could be calling. She wasn't expecting anyone and the postman usually just put the mail through the slot.

"Hello, how may I help you?" there were two young men standing outside of the door. One of them had short, spiky brown hair and brown eyes. He had a tanned complexion and he was standing in a way that suggested that his left leg was injured. His companion had long indigo-blue hair that hung down to his shoulders and crystal clear blue eyes. He was on crutches, one of his legs hanging motionless. Kari could tell from the haunted look in their eyes that they had been to war.

"My name is Davis Motimya and this is Ken Ichijouji. Is your name Kari Kamiya by any chance?" it was the one without the crutches that had spoken. Kari was a little taken aback at his question. She had just assumed that they had gotten the wrong door when she had seen them. Now it appeared that they were looking for her.

"Yes, that is me. Would you like to come in?" the two soldiers nodded and thanked her as they walked into the living room. T.K had switched off the radio and Sora had hurriedly put the plate down. They both came around to where the guests were standing.

"We should probably explain why we are here," the boy who had been introduced as Ken said, not seeming to notice that his leg was just hanging a little above the ground. Kari motioned for them to sit. Sora, T.K and Kari were all anxious to know why the two soldiers had come to see them.

"We knew Tai. He was in our unit and he was basically friends with everyone. He talked about you a lot and yeah… we found this and we thought that we should give this to you," Davis pulled a small brown book from a small backpack he had slung over his left shoulder. Kari hadn't even noticed that he had had it when she had opened the door. Davis passed the book over to Kari, who took it with shaking hands.

"What is it?" she asked softly, not sure of what to do with it.

"It was Tai's journal, although he only wrote in it twice. He said that it was some sort of record that could be sent back to his family if he didn't make it back. But there wasn't really anything in Egypt for him to write about… other than the fact that it was a disappointment. He told everyone that he would write in it once we started fighting, but after the first day he didn't want to record what was happening. About a week before our unit left Gallipoli, Tai, Joe and Izzy just disappeared. No one saw where they went. The guys that were in charge of taking the wounded to the hospital barges swore that they never saw them and they didn't come back to the trenches. We all just sort of assumed that they were gone. We remembered to pick this up to give to you once we got back, but then we were sent to fight elsewhere and got injured and everything. This has been the first chance we have had to come and see you," Ken explained. Sora left the room quickly, and T.K stood up to follow her.

"Excuse me," he said politely before he left to go after the older girl…

E N D   O F   F L A S H B A C K

He had never found out what Kari had spoken about with Ken and Davis afterwards. He guessed that she had asked things about her brother, but he wasn't entirely sure. Kari was sometimes known to ask strange questions. He had had to leave the room to follow Sora because he knew that the girl was feeling both guilty and sad. After all, Tai had gone to war because he had wanted to save Sora from being sad about the departure of her boyfriend, who had happened to be T.K's brother. That fact alone had made T.K go after Sora that day, instead if listening to what Davis and Ken had to say. Whatever the two soldiers had said however, had made Kari upset. She had refused to speak of the war or her brother ever since, and T.K knew that that was not good. She was keeping her feelings to herself and he knew that it was going to eat her up soon.

"Hey T.K, what are you up to?" Matt had come to visit his little brother to see how he was doing. Planning the wedding with Jun had been taking up much of his time and he hadn't been able to go and see T.K for a few months. T.K closed Tai's journal and placed it on the coffee table in front of him.

"Nothing much, I just finished reading Tai's journal," Matt had seen the journal and he had read it. Kari and her family had read it first, then Sora, then Matt. T.K had put off reading it, hoping and hoping that Tai would soon be back. But he had hoped in vain. It did not seem like Tai was ever coming back.

"It's pretty short, eh. He must have hated writing in it. Maybe he just didn't want us to know what was happening. War is… horrible. It changes people, makes them realise how much people really mean to them…" Matt trailed off, lost in his own thoughts. He kept on thinking how lucky he was that Tai had gone in his place. But whenever he thought that, he felt guilty because he had let Tai die. He was confused over whether he should be thankful, or whether he should feel guilty, so he settled for both.

"Yeah, I noticed. Ever since you've been back you've been… distant would be one word to describe it. You seem to have changed, but not all that much. I still feel that I know you, but you just don't tell people things anymore," T.K explained.

"Yeah, I know. I guess that it's because I saw some pretty bad things in the war and I don't really want to share those experiences. I've also been feeling guilty… very guilty… for sending Tai off to war in my place. If I hadn't listened to him then maybe he would still be here today," for the first time Matt voiced his guilt to his brother. T.K nodded, having already figured that out.

"But Matt, if that had happened he would have signed up anyway and both of you could have been killed. It's not your fault! Tai made his choice and now the only thing that we can do is accept that he is gone," his voice cracked a little as he said this, indicating that he was almost going to cry. He hated how the war had killed so many innocent people; hated how the war had killed Tai. He just wanted everything to be back to normal, with Tai chasing him around for kissing Kari and with Matt finding places for him to hide. The war had just messed everything up, and their lives would never be 'back to normal.' Tai was a part of that 'normal' and he was gone.

"I suppose you're right T.K, but that won't ever stop this guilt. Only if Tai comes back will my conscious ever be clear. And it looks like Tai is never coming back…" he trailed off and the siblings fell into a deep silence, each one thinking about their friend…

Sora hit the notes on the piano absentmindedly, causing her teacher to glare at her.

"You'll never learn how to play the piano if you don't concentrate Sora," the middle-aged woman told her sharply, before her eyes softened a little. She had known Tai as he had always come to distract Sora from her lesson. She also knew that he had gone off to war and had never come back. Even though he had distracted their lessons, she had liked the wild-haired boy. Now he was gone and Sora still couldn't concentrate. But this time she had a reason.

"I'm sorry Ms. Cosherince, I was just thinking about how Tai used to come here and distract us with stories of his soccer games, or his little sister. I know that it has been over a year since the war ended, but… Tai was my best friend and I can't believe that he is gone," she tried to put her hands back on the keys, but they began to shake. Her teacher saw this.

"Sora, why don't we end the lesson for today? You can go take a walk in the park or something so that you can clear your head. We can continue the lesson next week, okay?" she nodded and the teacher left quietly, praying that the young adult would be all right. At the age of nineteen and a half Sora should have been looking for a husband, or at least a job, to keep her busy. But she couldn't bring herself about to do either. Tai had been her best friend since she had been… well, as long as she could remember. They had made all sorts of crazy promises back then, at the time being serious, but forgetting about them the next day. She couldn't recall not being with Tai for the period of more than a day, ever, except for when his sister was sick. Even then they had spoken over the phone… Ms. Cosherince was right; she did need a walk. She brushed her hair quickly before going out. She just needed to go out.

"Sora, over here!" she had just reached the park when Kari called her name. She was with T.K, Matt and Jun, sitting on a bench about five meters to Sora's right. It was a beautiful day with a massive expanse of blue hanging over them. The Sun was shining down brightly and a small group of children were playing chasey through the middle of the park. The group had not been able to resist going out on such a beautiful day.

"Hey guys, what's up?" she made her way towards them, having to stop a few times to let the small children race past. One of them, a small brown-haired boy, ran smack-bang into her.

"I'm weally sowy," he apologised, not yet old enough to say his rs, "But thew're older than me and I want to win." And without waiting for a response he raced off. The boy did not look anything like Tai, except for the fact that his hair was brown, but that statement reminded her of him so much that she was startled. How could a boy, who was only about four years of age, sound so much like someone who was sixteen? Then it hit her. Tai had never really grown up. He had never had a chance to grow up before he went to war. Sure, a lot of the time he may have acted mature, but there were times when that would slip, and the real Tai would shine through. He had never had a chance to grow up… maybe war had forced him to.

"Joe, are you sure you're okay with those crutches? You look like you're about to fall over."

"Shut up Tai, it's your fault that we are here in the first place. If you had come back by yourself, then Izzy, Mimi and I wouldn't have had to have accompanied you back here," the struggling blue-haired man told the younger, brown-haired leader crossly. He didn't like how much he was being teased because he couldn't control the crutches he had been given to heal the wound in his leg.

"Well, we'd probably have come anyway. We love to be nosy and look into other people's lives," Izzy disagreed, his voice floating up from his wheelchair. He had been shot in the back by a Turk and the impact had shattered the area around his sine, leaving him paralyzed from below his waist. He considered himself lucky to be alive.

"Izzy, you're not supposed to say that! You are just supposed to stay on Joe's side," Mimi sighed, hitting her left hand onto her forehead. Joe was Mimi's boyfriend. The two of them had met at the hospital on Imbros where the three injured soldiers had been sent after Gallipoli. She had been their nurse, but she had had hardly any time for them as she had other patients too. But after a while the three of them had become her only charges, as the battle had finished at Gallipoli. Tai, Izzy and Joe had been injured pretty badly and so they had needed to stay in hospital for three-quarters of a year. They had then had to go through re-habilitation, well Tai and Joe had, to make sure that they were fit to function correctly.

"It's not my fault that Joe can't stay on his crutches," Tai said, trying to sound innocent, "But maybe if you helped him Mimi he'd be just fine… Wait, why is he on crutches? I thought that his leg was just fine after all that re-hab." Mimi looked confused.

"Yeah Joe, why are you still using those crutches?" the blue-haired boy just looked at her.

"You told me to use them this morning, remember?" obviously there had been a mix-up that morning. Mimi blinked.

"No, I told you to make sure you brought them along so that we could hand them back to the nearest hospital. I never said you had to use them!" Tai and Izzy were laughing at the couple so hard that Tai thought his sides would burst.

"Tai, should you be laughing this hard?" Izzy managed to gasp out in between his laughter. That caught Mimi's attention.

"Tai, if you laugh any longer now you could cause serious damage to your side again!" she told him sternly, bringing up her 'Nurse Mimi' attitude again. She had, like Izzy and Joe, signed up for the war when she was a year younger than the age limit. Because of this she had imitated the behavior of some of the older nurses and the boys had secretly called her 'Nurse Mimi' whenever she was warning them about their health and just plain Mimi when she wasn't. Whilst they had been injured they had found that extremely funny, but now it was just an affectionate nickname for the girl.

"But it's so funny watching the two of you fight like a married couple," Tai whined, forcing his laughter to stop. He did not want to have to go to hospital again because of his side. He had been shot twice in the battle that had injured him and his friends; once in his right shoulder and once in his right side. The bullet that hit him in the shoulder had torn all of the ligaments and muscles in his arm, leaving it basically useless for the time being. It would eventually get better, but for some reason the ligaments were taking an extremely long time to heal and he could barely move his arm at all. The shot in his side had also caused him a lot of problems. He had had to have his appendix taken out as the bullet had shot through it, and he had been unable to move for a few weeks due to the pain and doctor's instructions to lie still. He did not want a repeat of that.

"Hey, where are we anyway?" Joe asked, changing the subject so that another argument would not arise. They were in a park of some sort it seemed and the sky above them was bright blue. The temperature was nice about 33 degrees Celsius and many children were playing a game of chasey, swerving through the center of the park.

"We're in Odaiba Central Park. My home is not too far from here," Tai replied casually, "I thought that you guys were from around here. You must know this park."

"We know the other side of it Tai. We lived on the other side of the city to you, remember?" Izzy sauntered along in his wheelchair, watching as a little boy got tagged 'it'. He had loved to play chasey when he was young, and he had always come to this park with Joe to play it.

"I've never been here before. I'm from a very small town called Panton Hill," Mimi commented, "It's about half an hour from here. I've only been to Odaiba about once or twice, but I never came to the park." They continued to chatter about things that they remembered about Odaiba when they saw a small group of people, aged from around twenty one to sixteen sitting together on and around a small bench. Joe, Izzy and Mimi continued looking around, they did not recognise the group, but Tai's eyes stopped once they had seen it.

"Hey guys, can we go over there?" he motioned towards the people around the bench and the others shrugged.

"This is supposed to be a journey to get you home Tai. You lead us and we will follow," Joe told him, giving up on the crutches and just walking normally, with a bit of a limp. Tai thought about asking if he led them off a cliff would they follow, but he decided against it as the group he had been watching stood up to leave.

"Darn, I need to talk to them!" he muttered under his breath as he saw that they were traveling faster than his little group. "KARI!" He yelled this without warning and Izzy almost tipped his wheelchair over in shock.

"Give us a little warning next time, would you Tai?" he muttered sourly before looking towards the group they had been heading for. The youngest, a girl of around sixteen years of age, turned her head at Tai's call. The group had stopped walking away from them and instead had begun to come towards them.

"Who are these people anyway?" Mimi asked the chocolate-eyed nineteen year old, staring at the oddly-aged group coming towards them. She was wondering why the people were all together, and why they would all come when Tai had only called one name. In fact, even Kari was wondering why she was going towards some stranger that had called her name.

"Kari, why are we even bothering to go to these people? We don't know them and they only look like more ex-soldiers," Matt asked, walking behind the teenager with his fiancée, "What if we end up finding things out that we don't want to know?" The girl turned and let her ruby eyes shine in the sunlight for a moment before answering.

"Because something tells me that these people know something that we want to know. And we can't even see their faces because of their hats," it was true; the people who had called out to them were all wearing hats of some sort, except for the woman with pink hair that was walking beside a tall man carrying crutches. The only other thing that they could tell about them was that one of the guys was in a wheelchair.

"But what could they know?" Jun asked, "I mean, I think that I know that young woman. She was a nurse in the same hospital as me, in Imbros. He name was… Mimi I think. All I know is that she kept on getting in trouble for staying with three of her patients more than her others. She would just argue that they were in the most critical condition and that she wanted them to survive. In the end, they had to agree with her. If I remember correctly one of her patients had been paralyzed, another was on crutches and extremely sick, whilst the third one was almost dead for a while… in fact one of the other nurses had left him for dead, but Mimi managed to nurse him back to health. I'd say that those three where the people that she helped. I never caught their names though, the entire time I was there." By now they were close enough to hear what the others were saying.

"Joe, I've told you a million times not to say that!" the guy without the crutches or wheelchair exclaimed, his cheeks turning red, "Why won't you listen to me?"

"Tai, I'll take you seriously when pigs fly. Until then I will try to ignore all of the advice you give me," Kari stopped in her tracks, but the three men did not notice.

"Aw shucks Joe, and after I saved your life too. You should be thanking me, not teasing me," Tai finally turned around again to see Kari, T.K, Matt and Sora staring at him, "Uh, hi guys. Long time no see." Sora's eyes were almost as wide as dinner plates at the sight of her 'dead' best friend.

"B-but you-you didn't come back and… and…" she gave up trying to finish her sentence. Kari suddenly flung herself at her brother, happy tears coursing down her cheeks.

"Ouch Kari… do you mind letting me breath?" he ignored the slight pain in his side, too happy to see his little sister to care.

"Tai, you're back! I'm so happy that you're back!" that caused a huge reunion to occur between Tai, Sora, Kari, T.K and Matt. Jun, Joe, Mimi and Izzy hung in the background, waiting to be properly introduced. They couldn't help but smile at the reunion that was going on in front of them though. It was all just too happy to be true. When all of the excitement had died down a little, the introductions began.

"Guys, this guy here in the wheelchair is Izzy, and the one carrying the crutches is Joe. I'm sure I mentioned them somewhere in my letters. Anyway, the blob of pink hair belongs to Mimi, the person who nursed us all back to perfect health and also Joe's girlfriend," Mimi blushed a little at Tai's comment.

"Well, you're not in perfect health yet Tai. Remember your arm? You didn't forget about it again did you?" she was back to being 'Nurse Mimi.' Tai looked around a little nervously.

"Well… yeah. But I swear that I didn't move it this time!" he protested, receiving strange looks from the others. Mimi just laughed.

"That's okay, I mean, it's not my arm anyway," Tai stuck his tongue out at her in reply before turning his attention back to his other friends, "Now, that's these three introduced. I'm sorry, but I don't really know who you are. My esteemed sister and co. have not introduced you yet." He had noticed Jun standing pretty close to Matt, but he had no idea what had happened.

"Oh, sorry, I guess we just couldn't believe that you were back. This is Jun, my fiancée," Matt introduced her and Tai grinned and held out his left and.

"It's nice to meet you Jun. I'd offer you my right hand, but I'm under orders not to move it," they shook hands and then everyone knew each other. Sora decided to get to the story behind Tai's lack of communication.

"Tai, why didn't you write in the… one and a half years since your last letter?" she demanded, her crimson eyes flaring with both sadness and happiness at the same time.

"Well… you see… I was injured. I couldn't move my right arm. As I write with my right hand, I couldn't write to you. Joe wasn't in any fit state to write for me, and neither was Izzy really. Mimi was busy and so… I just didn't write. I was planning on teaching myself to write left-handed, but it never worked."

"How did you get injured?" T.K asked, for some reason finding the story interesting. Matt hadn't been injured in the war and T.K found that a bit boring. Now he had a good story to hear, and he didn't want to miss out.

"Well, I'll tell you once we get to my house. It's not really a story if you hear it standing in a park. Come on let's go…" and they all turned and left the park, together…

To be continued…

End of Chapter 2

Litanya: There, that's the second chapter of this fic. Please review. The third and final chapter will come out soon. See you later!