Paradigm Shift

I'm probably one of the few twelve year olds in existence who have actually experienced a Paradigm Shift, a complete change in the way that I view the world.

First I suppose I should tell you who I am. My name is Shibayama Junpei, and I'm a not-so-exactly-thin kid with a huge love of chocolate and only recently acquired the people skills in order to have friends. I also hold the Spirits of Thunder.

Sad, I know. At least with the social skills came four friends that are almost a second family to me.

First is Kanbara Takuya. Our leader when we were sent into an alternate world called the Digital World, and holder of the Spirits of Flame. He may first come off as a loud mouth, idiot who'll get himself killed easily, but he's really an intelligent guy when you actually get to know him. Not to mention a damn good fighter. I mean Ophanimon had to have noticed something about his fighting skills to chose him for one of the chosen to use Hyper Spirit Evolution, right?

So what if his plan to defeat Duskmon nearly got us all killed? It's not like I, or anyone else for that matter could've come up with anything better. Last I talked to him he said that he was starting Kendo and Martial Arts lessons.

That little revelation nearly shocked Kouji shitless. Not that I blamed him. After all, Takuya was a pretty good fighter, especially considering that Takuya was fighting as skilled as Kouji was, and Kouji actually had Martial Arts training.

That reminds me of the first time I actually met Minamoto Kouji. The mess that we got in was largely my fault, as I was the one bribing the Pagumon with chocolate in an attempt to get Tomoki and me out of the Digital World. Not that you could've blamed me, I mean, what would you have done if you were seemingly tricked into going into another dimension to fight and save it. Turns out Kouji ended up stalling the little furry head things by breaking off a metal pipe and kicking the crap out of them.

Damn near coolest thing I've every seen a human do. And when he ended up Spirit Evolving into Wolfmon, he killed Pagumon's evolved form of Raremon with one blow. Granted, he wasn't as strong as the enemy that Takuya fought when he first evolved into Agnimon, but still.

Kouji's the holder of the Spirits of Light, for some reason. I'm pretty much guessing that was decided long before anything in our life affected his personality. After all, everything about Kouji nearly spoke "Dark Brooding Bastard".

I should probably trademark that saying.

Any way, Himi Tomoki is younger than the rest of us. He was really a crybaby at first. Of course, when you consider how often he was bullied, especially by two kids known as Katsuharu and Teppi, it's little wonder he was upset about being thrown on a train that he didn't even want to go on. He ended up with the Spirits of Ice.

That was the main reason I tried getting him out of the Digital World. I couldn't have left knowing that he was still there. You know, the whole he's young, so he's weak and can't handle the pressure thing. He sure proved me wrong in the end.

And then there's Orimoto Izumi. She's the only girl in our little group, and the holder of the Spirits of Wind.

I used to have a crush on her during our adventure, but I gave up sometime around mid adventure. Granted Duskmon, then Cherubimon, then the Royal Knights destroying the world, then Lucemon trying to kill us and take over the Human World, I really didn't have much time to flirt with her at that point.

That was for the best anyway. After I stopped flirting with her, we acted much more like brother and sister than potential boyfriend and girlfriend anyway. After everything that we went through, we probably got too close for anything to happen between us anyway.

Besides, if she actually did return my feelings for her during that whole mess, chances are it would've been only because she had few friends besides us.

Granted I wasn't much better in the friendship department. That's where the whole becoming fat and eating a ton of chocolate thing came from anyway.

There's one more member of our group, Kimura Kouichi, the holder of the Spirits of Darkness, and Kouji's twin brother. We really didn't get to speak much during our whole adventure, with the whole end-of-the-world thing.

He was actually our enemy at one point, brainwashed by Cherubimon. I don't want to know everything that he did while he was Duskmon. He seemed messed up about that.

Then during the battle with Lucemon, he sacrificed himself to help us win. He said that he had no regrets. That was one of the few times I was truly terrified. I was sacred during the adventure obviously, but this was the worst.

The brought the fact up that we really could die. It doesn't matter that he ended up coming back to life ten minutes later; he still died, helping to save us and give us a fighting chance.

I heard that he wanted to take Martial Arts lessons as well.

I should probably do take Martial Arts lessons as well. Everyone knows that I could use the exercise, but I think I know the real reason why they want to do that.

They don't want to be caught off guard if we're needed again to save the world.

I should probably suggest joining to Izumi-chan and Tomoki as well. No use in any of us losing our fighting edge.

Now if only I can convince my parents that I'm not sick because I haven't eaten any chocolate in three weeks. Really, I don't need to eat the stuff anymore.

I don't need a replacement for friends.

Author's Notes:

This is just a look into Junpei's thoughts after the series, so I can try getting writing his character better. I just hope I didn't make him seem like a jerk.

As to the light cursing in this fic, I just thought that someone Junpei's age would actually say stuff like that at certain times. Hell, Takuya referred to Duskmon as "That Eyeball Bastard" in the original Japanese versions of Frontier, so don't say that none of the Frontier characters would say that.

The use of the honorific –chan at the end of Izumi's name is because he actually used that honorific in the Japanese version of Frontier.

As to the whole Martial Arts thing, that's just something I made up based on what I would do if I just saved the world by fighting against an evil demi-god thing. (Granted, I already take martial arts, but still.)

This is probably going to led up into a Frontier sequel that I might do.