The Remains Of Heaven

Chapter Fifteen: A Reason In Everyone

By Ryan Bodle

A/N: Thanks for eveyone who's reviewed so far. Hope this chapter was worth the wait for everyone!

He plunged his hands into the harsh cold water again. The temperature stung his hands but he kept them in there, rigorously scrubbing his finger tips clean, then his palms. The dark blood stuck to him with a passion as if to leave him a permanent scar. He couldn't rid himself of the sight of it. He needed to be clean, clinical. Still the stains refused to budge. The water began to shoot through his arms. He took them out and watched his fists shiver. His arms couldn't still them. Unsatisfied but defeated he dried them over the fire, and then the smell came back again.

It made him wretch. The smell of injury, the smell of death. He reiterated to himself, 'some doctor you'd make.' Kido Jyou growled at his hands. They stood for failure to him. They said that because he could not stand the sight of the sickly black crust that remained on his hands. It made his stomach flutter over and over. The mere sight of it made him uneasy beyond anything he thought. "Damn it," he muttered under his breath.

"It's a potent mixture," Izzy said over his back.

"It makes me sick," Joe answered. "How could I possibly be a doctor if this is what blood makes me do?" He dug his hands into his pockets and walked away. Izzy followed.

"Its not just blood. Its pure-,"

"Evil?" Joe interrupted. "I don't believe that. Maybe they are the bad guys, but they're not pure evil."

"Maybe not, but I know they're less than neutral," Izzy barked.

"I tried examining their blood before," he explained. "Just looking at it on a molecular level did something to do me. I don't know if it's evil, but its certainly powerful negative energy. It's not just you."

Joe's shoulder's sagged. "It doesn't make a difference. After all of it, I still killed." His feet dragged as he faced Izzy again. "I feel so different. Like I'm not me anymore."

Izzy's face twitched a little, like that was an attack at him. "For a long time I had wished that they were sentient beings, who could choose on their own. Maybe they could turn."

Joe became frustrated. Like every question was a dead end and turned him to one course of action, one he didn't wish to follow anymore. He grit his teeth. "And?"

"And that isn't the way it is!" Izzy barked. "If I could have seen an easier to do things, don't you think I would have done it by now?" He screamed. "You had just a taste of what I lived for too damn long. I wished it didn't result to this but that isn't the case." He calmed his voice. "These things have their will bent by a single being whose sole desire is nothing but malice, revenge."

Joe turned his eyes from his friend. Izzy continued. "If you don't want to accept that, then maybe you should leave this world." He walked off, leaving Joe stunned. He had never though Izzy would leave him an ultimatum choice like that.

Izzy marched back into the central command tent and back out the other side to his personal tent. As he exited he barged past a human figure but didn't stop to see who before find his own sanctum.

Yolei stood rigid to the barrage of Izzy's charge and her eyes traced him back to his tent. "Perhaps we should see if Joe is ok," she commented.

"Perhaps," Kari agreed. "I'll go find him." As Kari hurried off in the direction Izzy came from, Yoeli followed the angered man. Izzy stormed into his personal quarters and paced about, trying to find an outlet for his anger. Yolei watched him for a few minutes.

"It does you no good to act like Cody, you know?" She quipped. Izzy looked at her, his face still scowling. "Besides, you're no good at acting angry."

"Do you have to mock me every time I get upset?" Izzy hissed.

"Well it doesn't suit you," Yolei crossed her arms and leant against a support pole of the tent's doorway, it remained sturdy.

"But it suits," he paused. "Ark?"

Yolei blinked softly at the mention of the new name given to Cody, her look shied for a moment as if the two combined were on graceful flinch.

"Well he's spent so many years practicing," she replied. It didn't impress Izzy one bit as he turned away from her. "Of course I don't think it suits him, Izzy. I don't think it suits anyone. Why are you acting like this?"

"We've been here for nearly fifteen years and they haven't aged a day Yolei!" He answered. "We've talked about going back home for so long, how we can get on with our lives."

"And now they're back, we can go back with them!"

"What for?" Izzy snapped. "So we can pick up the pieces? As far as I'm concerned, those pieces have gotten so small, we can't see them anymore. What are we supposed to do after this?"

Yolei's grip on herself had tensed. She didn't answer him. She didn't have an answer. She remembered hoping for so long, she had never thought beyond realising the hope she could go home. Even if she did, she'd never be the same again. Nearly the same age as her mother, it gave her vertigo just imagining what it would be like. A tear started to form in her eye. The first she had shed in a long time.

A sense of steely resolve gripped onto her emotions from somewhere deep within her. She swallowed back her tears. "Then why are you here?"

Izzy paced again, absorbing the question. He considered it deeply and what his answer would be. Finally he sat back on his bed and collapsed into a heap of limbs. His anger diminished immediately, leaving someone far more vulnerable with almost child like qualities. With a quiver in his throat he managed.

"I don't know anymore."

"Joe?" Kari wandered into the command tent. Joe stood with his back facing her. "Joe? Are you ok?"

"Not really," he replied. "Izzy and I just went blow for blow in a verbal sense. Think he won."

"Why?"

"I can't get use to this Kari. They're completely different people now." His shoulders sagged. "Cody's so angry and bitter all the time. Yolei, she's so alien to how I remember her and Izzy, well Izzy's so destroyed."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh he thinks I can't see it, but I know him too well. He thinks there's no part of him as he used to be left, he's so close to giving up."

"Giving up on what?"

"Who knows, this war, the digital world," he paused. "Himself."

A chilling wind blew through the tent. The silence was becoming awkward. Joe sighed. "I don't know how I can help anymore," Joe finally continued. "Its like every act of sympathy I can muster gets thrown in face, every time I try to help, it gets worse."

"Perhaps, they don't want our apologies." Kari suggested. "I mean they've been here for so long they forgot what sorry means, or maybe it just insults them every time you say it."

"What else am I supposed to say?"

"That you'll help?"

They were disturbed by a shrill cry. Joe's hand gripped taught on the hilt at his belt. There was another cry and then sounds of panic. "We're being raided!" Joe exclaimed and bolted in the direction of the noise. Kari was closely on his tail.

They arrived at a panic on the outskirts of the camp as digimon quickly tried to set up a defence only to have them ripped down from behind. The night covered the entry of the shadows and made them invisible. "We need more light!" Joe ordered. He heard a scurry behind him. Instinctively his hand went for his sword and he turned. It was Gomamon.

"What's going on?"

Joe didn't think twice. "You're digivolving, that's what!" He clicked his digivice. A brilliant light erupted. "Use it!" Joe ordered the digimon about him. Quickly the digimon soldiers routed and turned on their assassins, culling many before the small party could regroup. Just as quickly as the light appeared, it had gone as Ikakumon now stood.

"Ikakumon! We need more light!"

"Harpoon Torpedo!" A projectile was shot straight over them and exploded giving off another flash of light as the digimon constructed a barrier to keep the shadow out.

"Get torches!" The digimon began to gather timber at his orders and passed them amongst the fronts of the garrisons. Within minutes the perimeter was lit up, the shadow retreated back to the darkness. Joe watched the shifting night with steely eyes.

Izzy appeared at the lines and looked over with an equal gaze. He spoke to a commanding Gazimon and moved on, making his way to the younger digimon. "You handled that pretty well," he remarked.

"I didn't think about it," Joe dismissed. "Are they just going to stay there?"

"Until they can see a weakness most likely," Izzy answered. "They're determined to make it through the lines and cause as much havoc as possible."

"You make it sound as if there's only one choice."

"Well only one I can see. Remember this is a war, Joe." Izzy turned and looked at Joe. "But I'll let you decide this time. Just don't come back to the tent until you're sure it's safe." He left Joe and Kari there.

There were a few moments of silence. "Joe?" Kari asked tentatively. "What will you do?" Joe kept his eyes fixed ahead of him, his lips grew taught and nearly snarled.

"I don't want to think that these creatures are pure evil and we have no choice but to kill every one we see. That'll make us no better than them, if that's what they are," he paused. "But most of all. I don't want to face the possibility that we only have one way forward."

He looked at Kari and his eyes sagged wide and open, he looked tired, defeated. "Aren't you sick of it? Not just this, but every fight we fight for the digital world. The fight that leads to just one path, just more killing in the name of preservation of the digital world. I don't feel good about it anymore, Kari. I don't want to think I'm forced to do it."

"I know what you mean. But we can't give up like this now. In the beginning we were defending this world, standing up to one bad guy after another. Don't you remember how digimon suffered and how we wanted to stop that?

But this is different. You see something out there you want to think is changeable, that we can reason with them."

"Not you too Kari."

"And maybe they are," Kari continued. "But you have to remember, this isn't us against one digimon anymore. It's a war. Those creatures chose to fight us, and all the while they choose to do that, so do we. We have to choose if we want to let them take this world and everything we love about it, or if we want to stand up to them.

I know that doesn't satisfy you Joe. But it's the truth. I choose to be here because I want to protect the digital world from them. And they choose to be where they are now. If it's one unavoidable choice you're scared of, then it's already been made. By them."

Joe didn't answer her. For the moment, he felt he could count on her being on his side, at least for now. It wasn't to be. Right now he was on his own and he felt being urged in to a choice he never wanted to make. He felt like it was he was being asked to defy his fate or go along with it with defeated shoulders. But underneath it all, it was far more basic. It was a simple choice for him. Kill or don't. He didn't want to kill or destroy any life. He felt it a fundamental contradiction to who he was. Yet if he refused to kill, he would allow others to be killed in the process and for a cause he couldn't allow to run free.

There was no chance for him to pick neutral, no impartial medical disposition for him. He was meant to defend the digital world, and that meant sticking with Kari, Yolei, and the others. Even with Izzy and Cody. He hated the twisted hand he was dealt by fate, but he was going to play it anyway.

"Ready archers," he ordered to a Gazimon Lieutenant. "And have them lit, I want to light up that area, put some more space between them and the camp."

"Yes sir."

The hilt of a heavy sword rammed into another soft, black skull. It destroyed the being instantly. Its owner brought the blade round and it sliced another three in one swipe.

Beside Ark, the judgement of hammer and pick tore through more and more shadow with swift fury. His goggles now over his eyes, Davis looked next to him where ark held his ground. "Any ideas?"

"Just one." Ark concentrated on his defence and continued to hack away at the never ending onslaught.

"Well?"

"Shut up and keep fighting!"

The tunnel they retreated down was narrow and at this time, their only saving grace. Forcing the shadow to bottle neck had so far ensured their survival. The others were a few meters ahead, scouting ahead for danger and making themselves ready to step in if one faltered.

T.K was furthest ahead and found a fork in their path. "Oh no, which way?" Leomon on all fours was not far behind. He sniffed about him.

"This way, the air is cooler and fresh," he pointed to the left. "We must hurry, Meramon follows us."

"Wait!" T.K stopped him and grinned. "Lead the others to the surface, I have an idea."

"What do you intend to do?"

"Get those creeps off our backs," the blonde answered. "Or at least buy us some time."

Davis kept swinging at the wall of black in front of him, all the while stepping backwards. Their numbers seemed impossible, there just couldn't be that many of them. "Do you still see the others behind us?"

"If I find you've been looking away from the fight all this time, I'll kill you myself," Ark grunted.

"Davis! Cody! Duck left!" A shout from behind them came. Both chanced a look to see they reached a fork. The left tunnel led upwards and they saw T.K, Matt and Ken waiting for them. The right was hot and a feint light glimmered, in its centre was an inferno and Meramon cackled his lips with a grin.

They didn't hesitate and dived for cover just as Meramon unleashed a torrent of flame. A tornado of fire burst back down the tunnel, crashing into the wall of shadow, disintegrating the front instantly. It worked its way back, burning more and more. The back draft became more intense as Meramon focused his efforts. Then suddenly they dropped. The fire stopped just as quickly.

Silence crept through the tunnels. Ark got to his feet and chanced his way forward. "Meramon?"

"Yes General," Meramon answered with fatigue.

"That was some fire power," Ark commended. "Can you walk? I do not believe it will stall them for long."

"I can, General." There was a scattering in the distance.

"Quickly!" Ark ordered and turned. "Davis! Run!"

The boy didn't need to be told twice and he quickly fled. Ark turned back to make sure Meramon wasn't far behind him. There was a shudder, followed by rock fall. The tunnel collapsed behind him. "Meramon!" Ark pounded on the rock and felt it hot to the touch. "Damn you!" He shouted and smashed his fist into the earth again, before turning to flee himself.

Another ten minutes of navigating the tunnel and the group finally found the surface. It was surprisingly devoid of shadow activity. There was dawn creeping over the mountains, and whilst the shadow was not reactive to the sunlight, they preferred the night and consequently avoided it.

Ark found that comforting for now. Whilst the possibility of encountering them was still there, it was now greatly decreased. He needed to put distance between the group and this place. By next night fall, the creatures would be all over the area like a plague.

"Leomon, do you recognise this place?"

"Yes, we are a few leagues east of the dark citadel."

"We travelled further than we realised," Ark commented. "How long until the armies reach the citadel?"

"By Lord Io's calculations, four days," Leomon answered.

"We must rendezvous with them."

"If our pace is good, we can reach them by noon tomorrow," Leomon guessed. "Lord Ark, Meramon?"

Ark looked at his Lieutenant and minutely shook his head. Leomon looked away and closed his eyes.

"What happened to Meramon?" T.K asked.

"He stayed behind," Ark answered. "We must move. The shadow will only be delayed shortly in their hunt for us. We must make it back to the others now."

The party moved on in silence, it was a symptom of the shock they were all experiencing. They followed Ark as he made a straight line across the plains they marched on. It headed straight for what Leomon had guessed was the path of the main guard of the digital world's army.

Ark marched without halt for two hours and pushed a heavy pace, he was determined to reach the cover of the forest ahead of them before the sun went down. They had few hours before the light would die. Already, Ark could smell the hardiest of shadow creatures begin to surface, looking for them. It wouldn't be long before the area would be blanketed in patrols, scouts and scavengers all looking for their blood.

The forest was but a league away and still nobody spoke. The silence was beginning to become eerie. Even for Ark. He broke the silence as they came to the edge of the outer copses.

"We will rest for a while inside the trees, but we must carry on through the night until we are deeper into the forest," he explained. There was no argument. They accepted it as an order and merely nodded or moaned their agreement.

They navigated the woods for another hour before stopping. By now the night was starting to settle in. Ark had sent Leomon in search of kindling material, Ken volunteered to accompany him. Ark remained with the others, they all dropped to the floor in exhaustion. Ark knew with the pace he set, they would be tired but all of them were on the brink of collapsing.

Davis showed a weak smile to hide his fatigue. Trying to remain headstrong as he always did. Matt withdrew and didn't make eye contact with anyone, refusing to show his physical condition but he did it poorly. T.K sat propped against a tree, his head lulling back.

Ark preferred for now to remain on his feet and kept alert. He waited just twenty minutes before Ken and Leomon returned with an ample fuel for a fire. Leomon started a fire immediately, a task not so quickly done without Meramon there. When it was done, the party formed a circle around it, let the flames soothe their muscles. It almost seemed to revive them.

Ark took off his pack and opened it up, producing a large flask and cooking set. He quickly set a tripod over the fire and placed the bowl on top. From the flask he poured a thick broth, enough for everybody. He took out a loaf just the broth began to bubble. He next took out several small bowls and distributed the meal amongst everyone. Once everyone had a bowl, he saw to himself. Everyone ate in their own sombre silence.

Kari walked in to the command tent, Izzy was busy tapping away at his beaten old laptop. Even now he was calculating every possibility for the assault on the dark citadel, their target. He acknowledged her presence with just a question, never turning from his screen.

"Has he decided to fight after all?"

"Joe? He's still resolute there's another choice. He's keeping the shadows back by firing torches into the open and keeping the shields up."

Izzy snorted. "I hope he snaps out of it by the time we really fight, we can't have him trying to spare the lives of things, he'll get more digimon killed."

"Give him a break Izzy," Kari sighed. "I know it's been tough for you, I'm sorry, I really am. But Joe's still adapting, he doesn't like to think he's being forced into this. That he's chosen to be where he is now."

"Spare me Kari, I didn't choose to be where I am now, I ended up here, why should he be any different?"

"Its not like that, he just needs to come to terms with the fact he's here because he wants to protect this world and its somebody else's choices that got him here, it's the same with all of us." She sat on some cushions opposite him. "I bet you went through the same thing when you were stuck here."

He didn't speak at first, he swallowed hard and suddenly his throat seemed very dry. "Yeah," he croaked. "It wasn't a happy time at all for me. I just want him to learn without going mad, like I nearly did."

"You know, he said he still knew you pretty well."

"Oh really? And just what did he say?"

"That you're cracking up," Kari answered bluntly. "I never saw it until he mentioned it, but I have to agree."

"What are you getting at?"

"The same thing you're getting at with Joe, I guess." Kari shuffled about on her seat. This conversation was uncomfortable for her. The only thing that kept where she was, was that felt the only one in control at the moment, the only person not tearing into pieces inside. "You're worried Joe won't fight when it comes to it."

"And now you're saying I won't?"

Kari shrugged. "Maybe, or maybe that you're not fighting for anything anymore."

Izzy stopped typing and met her eyes. He pushed the screen down on his laptop. "Ok."

"Is he right?"

He avoided her gaze. "I don't know."

"Which is as good as yes," she got up and walked over to him, place a hand on his shoulder. She then knelt down to make eye contact with him. "What's wrong Izzy?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"Its not the fighting you should be concerned about, I've fought for this world for pretty much my entire life. It's as good as my home now as it is for any digimon here. I'll fight to the ends of this world, the real world and my life just to protect it." His voice quivered astride to form everything he felt into tangible sentences. "It's after that that worries me.

I can almost hear your thoughts, Joe's, Matts'. They all think, just win this one and everything can go back to normal. What you don't remember is that there will be no normal for me, for Yolei or Cody. How can we resume our lives, just pick up where we left off?"

Kari looked up at his eyes, they were somewhere in between tremendous sorrow and fearful rage.

"We've been scarred and nothing can make it go away. We can't go back to real world again. I'd be barely 5 years younger than my parents. Cody must be the same age as his!" He took a breath to quieten his anger, swallowed back his emotion. "So we defeat the shadow lord, king, emperor, or whatever it's to be called. What next?" He looked to Kari for an answer. "What do we do then? Stay here and wait for death to take us? We're nothing but obsolete in that world, we can't go back."

Kari sniffled. She was on the verge of tears and could see Izzy was the same. 'Don't cry now, you have to be strong,' Kari told herself. 'Keep it together, for everyone, they need you.'

"I don't know what you can do," she answered honestly. "But that doesn't mean we'll give up on you. We're your friends and we won't quit. Because we know, you wouldn't quit on us."

She got up and walked out of the command tent to leave Izzy alone with that to think about. More importantly though, she needed to get away. She walked in a random direction and made space between her and the tent. When she was sure she was on her own and nobody had followed her, she broke up. Tears fell from her eyes in torrents. She felt useless again, helpless to change everything around her. She needed help to keep everyone, herself included, from falling apart.

She needed Tai. He'd tell them how everything would be done and they'd all be too impressed or insulted by his arrogance to notice what was actually happening. Or even Davis. He'd pull off some miracle that would keep everyone together. Then there'd be T.K to make light of anything that was left over, then it would all be forgotten. Everyone would be friends again, united to a cause. Kari realised how little she seemed now, she wasn't cut out to be a leader, she couldn't keep everyone together. It just wasn't in her.

If Cody was successful, then Davis, T.K and Ken would be here soon. Davis would have an idea of what to do. It'd probably be the wrong one but he'd get everyone to go along with it anyway. 'Just fight a little longer Kari, everyone needs you.'

The fire was hypnotising. Staring at it longer and longer made him want to stare forever at the flames, it provoked his thoughts. The more he fixed at the fire, the deeper he began to think about everything that had lead up to this point. He thought about everything to come, what would happen if he went on. His friends with him, would they get hurt? Would his actions lead to them getting hurt or worse? It had already happened once.

He tried to save Sora and Tai, and for all he could know, his actions lead to both of them falling into the crevice the mysterious digimon created. They fell and never came back. They fell into darkness. Would his other friends do the same, making these shadows stronger?

'Don't even go there Motomiya,' Davis told himself. 'You'll get them back and you'll stop this thing hurting anyone else. You have to.'

He was going to fight to bring them back, he was going to stop everything to come. With that his hands fell to the reassuring hilts of his weapons he was given. They seemed to be fused with the power of the crests of Courage and Friendship. Tai said it was gift. Did he make these weapons? But one of them was engraved with friendship as well. So that must mean it was a power that Matt had given him. It didn't make sense, but it didn't matter. Motomiya Daisuke was going to make sure they went to good use.

Meramon was dead because of him. No matter how he tried to reason with the voice of guilt inside him, it was still his fault. No matter how hard he tried to defy the wave of darkness that swept the digital world, he couldn't hold it back. Something was slowly smothering him, it was this darkness. It was clawing at him in one form another, looking for a weakness to expose. Looking for fear. First it was Devimon which he and Patomon had defeated and the near cost of Patomon's life. Then it started ripping his friends apart in this latest endeavour and took the lives of two.

Now Meramon's life was forfeit because of T.K's idea to hold back the shadow that chased them. He could feel a cold sense of dread trying to get at him, claim him. That was the only thing that kept him from caving completely. He wouldn't let it get at him. He show this thing, he wasn't afraid and he'd fight it at every turn.

A/N: I promise, at one point, this will stop being so miserable. Leave you comments on that little button there, go on, just leave a little review for me. Thank you kindly.