"Sins of the Father"
4. 'The female of the species'
"A tragedy with more damage than a soul should see,
And I do try to change him,
So hard not to blame him.
Hold on tight, hold on tight.
I'm longing for love and the logical,
But he's only happy hysterical.
I'm waiting for some kind of miracle,
Waiting so long.
He's soft to the touch, but frayed at the ends he breaks,
He's never enough, and still he's more than I can take."
'Beautiful Disaster' Kelly Clarkson
"Oh God!"
Ken sat bolt upright again in his bed and tossed the covers aside as he leapt out of his bed and ran down the hall. He burst into Kouen's room and found her in the bathroom again. She was muttering, 'Oh God' under her breath, over and over again and Ken faltered at the sight of her.
"What the hell?" he stammered and she turned to him, looking confused and very worried.
Her hair, which had been cut haphazardly last night was looking perfect as if the scissors had never come in contact with her long curly locks. She tossed her red hair over her shoulder and it came to her waste.
"How is this possible?" Ken asked.
Something seemed to dawn on her face as if she had the idea of what was going on with her all along but didn't really want to face it.
"Ken, this is going to sound gross, so I'm sorry, but last night, when you walked in on me in the bathroom, did you notice my stomach?"
Ken shook his head, "I was more concerned with your hair."
"I'd noticed it a few days ago but didn't really think of it until now. I don't have a single stretch mark on me. It looks as though I never even had a baby. Even my scar from where Osamu stabbed me is gone. And now my hair has grown back over night."
Ken frowned deeply, "Where are you going with this?"
"I think I may be almost immortal, or invincible or something."
"What?"
"Think about it Ken, twice already I should have died but I didn't. I think it's the Spirit, there's so much about it we don't know…" She trailed off at the look on his face.
"I'm going to do an experiment." She turned and picked up her razor. She bent it so the blade was exposed and before Ken could stop her, she pressed the razor into her flesh and her forearm began to bleed.
"Kouen!" Ken gasped but before he could say more he noticed that her skin was already repairing itself. "How…?"
"Phoenix Spirit." She stated gloomily. "Phoenix's are immortal."
"Kouen…"
They both looked to the door when they heard Sam crying.
"I'll get him, you call the others and tell them to meet us in the digital world so we can finish destroying the Dark Towers." Kouen stated and began to walk to the door.
"I already told you Kouen, I don't want you to…"
"Ken, you just saw what I saw, but what you didn't see is the visions I had last night. There's something there Ken, I can fix this, if you just let me."
He opened his mouth, he wanted to say it was his mess to clean up but he knew that if he hesitated, many more lives would be hurt in the long run and he did not need more death on his conscience. He nodded, defeated and walked to the phone.
------
Ken mentioned nothing to the others about what had happened the night before with his dreams and Kouen's moment of temporary insanity. He didn't want them to worry, at least not yet. He, however, was quietly obsessing over it.
Kouen turned to everyone, "I've never done this before so I don't know what's going to happen, but if something goes wrong, get out of here as fast as you can."
Daisuke turned to the redhead, "What exactly are you going to do Kouen? Ken didn't say over the phone."
"I'm going to Fusion Evolve using both Spirits."
"But why do you need more power?" Tailmon asked kindly.
"You'll see." Kouen said confidently.
She took a deep breath and then said, "Fusion Evolution!" For a moment she glowed white and when the light faded, a large Digimon was in her place, flying in the air. She was about as big as X-Veemon and she appeared to look like a Phoenix, with the exception that her body was human looking, in her gold body suit. "EmpressWarPhoenixmon!" Feathered wings and tail spread around her and a phoenix shaped beak was over her head like a helmet, covering her eyes. She let out a wild cry and the air around her seemed to shudder.
She looked down on the miles of Dark Towers and yelled, "Phoenix wave!" and a huge wave of fire blasted from her wings and flowed over the land in front of her, destroying every Dark Tower it touched for many miles but leaving the rest of the landscape free from harm.
The whole group looked up in awe of her and before they could cheer with happiness, EmpressWarPhoenixmon turned sharply to her right and glared at something in the far distance.
Ken yelled up to her, "What is it?"
She didn't turn to him, but instead kept her focus on whatever it was that had caught her attention. "Something powerful." She stated, "I can feel it." And without another word, she flew off with great speed in that direction.
"Hey!" Miyako yelled angrily, "Don't wait for us or anything!" she added sarcastically.
"We better follow her." Hikari sighed and turned to Tailmon, "Think you could fly me there?"
The cat-like digimon nodded and evolved into Angewoman.
Daisuke turned to Ken while the others evolved their digimon, "Are you coming?"
Ken nodded absently to his best friend and looked down at Wormmon.
They flew off searching for Kouen, and finally arrived near the Village of Beginnings.
They could see in the distance EmpressWarPhoenixmon hovering in the sky along with another large digimon. Two more digimon were there, though they were standing on the ground, looking up. One of them Ken recognized instantly.
"That must be Arukenimon." He muttered, "And that must be BlackWarGraymon."
They were about to fly closer when they saw Blackwargraymon throw a Terror Destroyer attack at EmpressWarPhoenixmon. With a swift attack of flames, she sent him to the ground and stood over him.
"I don't want to fight you. Apparently you want to find a worthy adversary to fight. You found her. However, I will not kill you, unless you give me good reason to do so. You have a purpose in this life, though you may not think it. Your time will come."
BlackWarGraymon looked up at her with intense defiance and just as swiftly as she hand done, knocked her to the ground. In a flash, both fighters were on their feet again and then up in the air. BlackWarGraymon lifted his arms, forming another 'Terror Destroyer' attack, while Kouen prepared another 'Phoenix Wave' attack. With an earth-moving cry, both of them threw their attacks at each other and met half way. A devastating explosion took place, causing everyone, including EmpressWarPhoenixmon and BlackWarGraymon to be thrown backwards. Kouen was the first to recover and she wasted no time in speeding toward BlackWarGraymon and by using her fist, which had erupted into flames, she landed a powerful blow to his gut sending him back further.
"Give up!" she yelled at him, "I could have killed you in a second if I wanted to, but I need you alive!"
She turned to Mummymon and Arukenimon, who were getting to their feet and dusting themselves off. "As for you two, I think things would be better if you were eliminated." But before she could attack, they had jumped into their Jeep and zoomed off. She could have easily gone after them, but instead she turned back to BlackWarGraymon, her hand pushing down on his throat. She gave him a hand to help him up.
"You say I have a purpose?" he asked, his deep voice sounding disbelieving.
She nodded, "Yes. You will be needed to save this world."
"But I thought my only purpose was to destroy it."
"Ironic isn't it?"
He nodded with a slight bow. He felt intense respect for her for some reason and did as she had told him. He buried the burning desire to destroy and fight and walked away from her. His demeanor was sad and lost. She had seen that expression before, twice. She ran forward and put a hand on his shoulder and he turned to her.
"You aren't a monster." She stated softly and kindly.
"I'm not real though. I'm made from Dark Towers. I have no heart, I have no meaning, I have nothing." He bowed his head slightly and made angry fists with his clawed hands.
"You are as real as I am. And no matter what anyone says, you do have a heart, the fact that you can feel this way, proves that fact. If you wish to help us, do so by destroying all the Dark Towers you can."
He looked up into her face and stared at her for a while, as if looking for something and then he nodded and turned from her once more, heading into the dense forest.
The others flew and landed near EmpressWarPhoenixmon stood.
"What happened?" Takeru asked as he climbed down from Angemon.
"We talked and he's on our side." She stated bluntly.
"At least now the Destiny Stones or whatever will be safe right?" Daisuke asked.
She nodded and looked around. "We better start getting rid of the rest of these Dark Towers."
In an instant, she flew up into the sky and sent out another 'Phoenix wave'.
"If she keeps this up," Hikari marveled, "all the Dark Towers will be destroyed today. That's amazing!"
"Yeah," Ken mumbled. He looked up into the sky, where EmpressWarPhoenixmon was hovering. He suddenly felt extremely angry with her and himself. He felt useless and she was the one to make him feel this way. This was his job, this was something he not only wanted to do, but needed to do. Sort of a healing process. He turned to walk away only to be stopped when a huge rumble in the sky stopped him. He turned and moved back to the others. They were all looking up into the sky and he realized why. A huge pale blue dragon with a marvelous long white beard was floating in the sky. His mouth dropped open, "Azulongmon."
"That is correct, Ken, well half correct, here, in this world, they call me Qinglongmon." The large dragon god boomed.
All the Chosen looked up at him as EmpressWarPhoenixmon landed softly on the ground and devolved.
"Thank you for releasing me." He said to not only Kouen but all of them, "I was trapped in limbo for a very long time and I thought I would never get out of there…it was very boring, I didn't even have anything to read."
"Does this mean," Takeru called out, "that everything is safe with the Digital world now?"
"I'm afraid not. You may have stopped a lot of terrible things from happening but sadly you did not stop everything. Destiny has a funny way of making things happen, no matter how much you try to stop it."
"You know what we know." Miyako interjected suddenly and everyone turned to her. "We have friends from another world who told us what was going to happen, but how do you know?"
The huge digimon chuckled, "You must be Miyako, not much gets past you. There are many things I know about, especially the Chosen Children and what goes on in their lives. I am a god after all." After a few minutes Qinglongmon had gone into his tale of how he was trapped in limbo and how Gennai had been restored to his young self. He also went on to tell them that Arukenimon and Mummymon were not the only threat.
"We're going to have to destroy it all aren't we?" Ken suddenly said darkly.
"What?" Daisuke questioned.
"Anything to do with the powers of darkness should be destroyed, or it will destroy us."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple Ken," Takeru informed him, "While I'm right there with you, I know it's not only impossible, but pointless as well. Without light there can't be darkness and without darkness, there can't be light."
"He is right." The huge dragon called, "Do not worry Ken, you will get your battle."
Suddenly he turned to look at Kouen, who for the most part was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, as she felt widely out of place at the moment. She gasped when the set of four eyes lay on her. "As for you," his voice vibrated through her, "you have been a great assets to the Chosen and you freed me, for that I thank you."
She bowed and then looked up at him again. "You know who I am," It was a statement, not a question, "can you tell me anything about my Spirit?"
They could almost hear the god sigh, "Yes, your Spirit is one of the Guardians of a Digimon world. She is a god and a powerful one at that, though she is quite ruthless. Osamu traveled to that world to retrieve her Spirit which resided in a temple."
"She was never a corporeal form?"
"Only when needed, for battles, but for most of her life she was in a dormant state. That is how Osamu was able to capture her in his device. As I understand it, she has become quite a burden on you."
Kouen shifted and shrugged, "I got used to her, as I'm sure she got used to me." She looked around for a change of subject but thankfully Hikari came to her aid.
"How many digital worlds are there?"
"It is difficult to say Hikari, there are many worlds, running parallel to each other. Now, it is time that I go, I have many things to attend to, as I'm sure you do too. Good Luck Chosen Children!" with that said, he unfurled himself and disappeared into the clouds.
------
Ken took a hesitant step forward, his foot pressing the grass, crunching a dead leaf. The wind blew a chilly breeze, which seemed out of place for the season. He shifted Sam in his arms and continued forward, weaving in and out of the tombstones.
He had already visited the first person he wanted to introduce Sam to; Iori. Ken had reflected how cruel it seemed that such a wise child had died so young. But he had died just like his father, protecting the people who he felt were more important than himself. In a way, Ken was awed by him.
As he walked forward his hair got caught up in the wind and fell over his eyes, blinding him for a moment. When he could see again he was almost surprised to see that he was in front of Osamu's grave.
He stopped walking abruptly and then took a few slow steps forward and finally knelt down on the grass.
Feeling incredibly out of place, Ken couldn't seem to find the words that he wanted to say. This was the first time he had visited Osamu's grave since the funeral and that day had being such a blur to him anyway.
People had spoken to him but the words had flown over him like the wind.
What do you say to the person you killed, who was your brother?
"Hello, 'Samu."
Ken wanted to laugh bitterly at himself but held it back.
"I came to show you your son. We found out Kouen was pregnant after…well, it's a boy."
He lifted Sam a little as if to show him to Osamu's headstone.
"He looks just like you did when you were a baby. He's got your eyes. Kouen decided to call him Sam after you and…"
He took a deep shuddering breath, "She misses you so much. We both do. There's so much happening now that…I don't know if we'll ever be okay. It's like everything is falling apart and slipping through out fingers and I wish there was something I could do to stop it. And it all started with this Dark Seed thing. As it turns out, a man named Owikawa is behind this whole thing. He's being possessed and well, he's just another pawn in this whole sick game too. I swear to you Osamu, I will stop this and put it to rest so I can avenge you."
Sam moaned a little and squirmed in Ken's arms, bringing the attention on him. Ken looked down and rocked him a little, saying, "Shh, it's okay, Sam."
Then Ken lifted his eyes again and stared at the tombstone, "I'm not going to pretend you were some saint, Osamu, because we both know that you weren't and neither was I, but what happened to you was not your fault and it spun out of your control. So I'll make it right for you."
He took another deep breath in and exhaled slowly, a piece of him being carried on the wind and away from him.
------
Her hand ran along a wooden crate and then fell to her side as she walked through the hollow warehouse, her feet echoing with each step.
She lifted her head to look up at the many levels and remembered when each room or area was taken up with children or families or resistance fighters.
"It's not true, Osamu! I love you, Yamato is just a friend!"
"Liar!"
A shot reverberated through the air, chilling everyone to the bone. A single cry went out as Iori ran and pushed Matt out of the way. The boy was dead before he even hit the floor.
"NO!" Ken screamed, his throat tearing.
"Why?" Kouen cried and ran forward but Osamu was already retreating on Stingmon.
Kouen closed her eyes against the image as it ran through her head and turned away.
Her eyes roved over the warehouse and fell to the door leading to the dojo. She walked forward and slowly unlocked and opened the door, feeling horribly nostalgic.
All the weapons were still there on the shelf, including her pair of Sai. She had almost forgotten that Matt had collected them and put them back here with her father's other weapons.
And then her eyes landed on the katana, which Ken had used to kill Osamu. Both weapons had being cleaned she noticed but that didn't make them any less tainted.
She moved across the room and brushed her hand over the Sai, the one that had penetrated her flesh and organs and almost killed her and quickly she pulled her hand away as if it had burnt her.
She turned around and realized that it had being a long time since she had being in a dojo. For the first time in a long time, she suddenly felt calm and at home.
A dojo reminded her of her father, good times, training hard, feeling focused.
As if she had meant to do it all along, she moved to the middle of the room and began working on her kata and kicks and a genuine smile suddenly washed over her face. She suddenly felt alive, she felt focused, grounded and like the whole world made sense, even though it was thrown into chaos.
------
Ken and Kouen were in the kitchen preparing dinner, while Shinsei looked after Sam in the living area. The tall indigo young man was making a strong note of setting things down with a hard slam, until Kouen finally turned to him, her temper flaring.
"You're angry with me aren't you?"
"I'm not."
"Bullshit. I can see it."
"Then, yes, I am. Happy now?"
She frowned at him, "No. Why are you angry with me."
"You already know."
"Oh for God's sake, are we going to go round in circles like this?"
Ken tossed the saltshaker across the room, where it exploded with a loud shattering sound, and sprinkled to the tiled floor below. Kouen barely flinched.
"It was my mess Kouen. My duty! Stingmon and I could have handled it fine."
"Yes, and taken your sweet time about it, in the mean time, things would have gotten out of control and the worlds would be in danger once again."
Ken marched to the other side of the kitchen, "You don't understand Kouen! You don't know how I feel, what it's like to live with!"
"No, I was not the Kaiser-"
"I killed him Kouen!" Ken fell to his knees and began to sob uncontrollably tears sparkling sadly in his crystal blue eyes, "I killed him and I can't live with myself for doing it! I miss him so much and it's my fault!"
Kouen's mouth fell open and she automatically fell to his side, holding him in her arms, she rocked him back and forth, "I know you do." She cooed, "I'm sorry you had to go through this, I never wanted you to go through it, that's why I…" she sighed and kissed his head, "You never did get to mourn did you?"
He began to sob harder and then fell silent, still letting tears fall down his face.
Kouen just let him cry; let him feel, let him grieve. She stroked his hair and held him close to her.
"I'm so sorry, Kouen." He whispered in a choked sob.
She looked down at him and shook her head, "Ken, you don't have to apologize to me. You saved us all and more importantly, you released Osamu from the internal hell he was going through. I just wish that I could do the same for you."
He pulled away slightly and looked at her, blinking a few times and then he pulled up his sleeve to show his arm to her.
"I just wanted to make the pain in my head stop." He croaked as if trying to make an excuse for what he had done to himself.
She nodded, understanding completely what he was saying and placed a hand on his scars, then pulling him close to her in a hug, she wrapped her arm around him.
"I'm so grateful I have you in my life Kouen." He muttered.
"Me too, Ken."
They sat like that for what must have been an hour until Shinsei entered the kitchen and looked down at them with a happy smile, "The healing has begun." She whispered and walked out of the room again.
------
(AN) Right well, another chapter done.
I know that there are mistakes with the names of the digimon and whatnot but I can't find the Japanese names for the digimon, so please point them out for me and I'll change them. Obviously, there are intentional mistakes but I'm sure you'll figure out where those come in. Oh and, if you see that I've called Tailmon, Gatomon please let me know, I keep thinking I've found all those mistakes but I find another one.
(Edited) Thanks Aknio Ame for the corrections. I agree the fight was quick, but I did that mostly because in 'Doppelgangland' she easily defeated Daemon, which shocked Ken. BlackWarGraymon compared to Daemon is a walk in the park, but I did add some stuff to it now to make it a little better. I've made her so strong for one very specific reason (which will show in 'Cruel Angel's Thesis'). Ironically, her strength will be her biggest weakness.
Thanks for the name corrections. I edited those too.