Story: Fade In, Fade Out||Chapter: The Turning Point
Chapter: 10-15||Words: 4,589||Total: 46,259
Characters: Daisuke, Kaiser, Chosen Children||Ship: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken
Genre: Drama, Romance||Rated: PG-13n
Summary: Daisuke awakens to find himself at the feet of the Digimon Kaiser. Strange voices invade his mind, reality alters at a whim, and all he wants is to find his way home.

Dark. Dark. More dark. And then, just for some variety, shadows. Deep dark ones. Ken really needed to seek professional help when it came to his decorating tastes. If he was the one who had fixed this place up in the first place. Daisuke couldn't be certain. It felt like it was Ken's fortress, but his feelings really weren't anything to be depended on anymore.

He couldn't hear V-mon anymore. The sad cries had died out not that long ago. Ken wasn't talking to him either. If he'd had to pick between the two, he would much rather have heard V-mon. He'd much rather have been with V-mon, and been as far away from this place and all the confusing confusions as possible.

So thick were the shadows around him that when they finally parted and light burst into begin all around him, Daisuke still couldn't see. He jumped a little, freezing in place, and tried to cover his furiously stinging eyes with one hand. "That was not funny!"

"I was rather amused by it." Ken's voice. Of course. Who else would it have been?

The other's. It wasn't so much a voice in his mind as it was a simple awareness. He had no idea what to call it, only that it just said those two words, and then faded away. Daisuke shook his head a little; he was losing it. Badly.

Well, he knew how this kind of thing went. Memories were flickering through his mind, himself and Ken, over and over, always with Ken being stronger, more powerful, dominant, sneering at him with that peculiar light in his eyes. He knew where he'd heard the voice coming from and he started over here, still carefully taking each step one at a time so he wouldn't risk falling.

He couldn't have said how he knew, but he wasn't surprised when he dropped down on his knees, and felt Ken's unmistakeable presence beside him. A quickly outstretched hand brushed against the side of the throne, then he stiffened. Someone else's hand was touching the top of his head.

"I suppose next you're going to tell me that I'm well trained or something?" He just sighed the words out. The script was being followed, and he was almost too tired to care. As much as it burned in him to just let all of it happen and not fight, he was so tired of it all. No matter which way he turned, he always ended up right back here anyway. He was stubborn, but he wasn't stupid. He had a vague notion of when to quit. He'd just never thought it would end up like this.

Ken only laughed, not moving his hand, just touching the tips of Daisuke's hair. "Why should I bother with what we both know?" Traditional cocky Kaiser remark. Yes, he had the script memorized as well as Daisuke did. And he'd probably had it memorized before Daisuke had as well. Just to annoy him.

"So where's V-mon?" He wasn't going to forget his real goals that easily. He noticed somewhere in his mind vaguely that he was rubbing his lower left cheek. Wasn't there supposed to be something other than smooth skin there?

"There." Daisuke looked up, noting briefly that he was able to see more now. The blinding light hadn't quite ripped his sight away permanently, though it had definitely done a good job of trying. He blinked a few times, waiting for the stinging to finally stop, and then finally saw where he was.

It was almost exactly where he'd thought he'd be. Right where this had all begun, at least as far as he was sure it had. In Ken's fortress throne room. Floating in front of him were Ken's monitors, and all of them showed the same image: V-mon, with an Evil Spiral firmly clamped around one arm. There was the familiar red tinge of those who were under the Kaiser's control around his eyes as well. Daisuke clenched his fists, longing more than anything to rip that thing off of his partner and shove it into Ken's face. Or perhaps through his face. That had an appeal to it.

"Well, are you happy now, Ken? You've got both of us right where you want us." Daisuke growled the words out, glaring up at the violet-eyed boy beside him. Ken glanced down towards him calmly, then reached out to place one gloved hand on Daisuke's lips.

"You have no idea how happy this makes me, Daisuke. I know you're going to keep fighting me, even in the smallest of ways. I want that." His voice was a mere whisper. "The more you fight me, the stronger I become."

"I will tell you this, Motomiya. That stubbornness might've worked to your advantage before, but that's exactly what's going to work in my favor this time. Fight me all you want." He leaned closer, dark eyes gleaming in reflected light, his breath a warm whisper in Daisuke's ear. "Fighting me only lets me win in the end."

The memory flashed through his mind like a bolt of fire, and Daisuke jerked away, eyes round with shock. Who had that been? It wasn't Ken, that was obvious. This person was older, hadn't bothered with concealing their face, and had an entirely different voice. The attitude was identical, down to the last bit, though.

"Get back here, Daisuke." Ken's command was, as usual, obeyed without the slightest bit of thought on Daisuke's part. The collared boy found himself seated once more beside Ken, his eyes lowered and his emotions in turmoil. "Tell me what you're thinking about."

This instant obedience could get really annoying. "When you said that it makes you stronger the more I fight you, I had a vision or something. I saw someone else who said just about the same thing. That me fighting him only lets him win in the end. I was wondering who it was."

Ken said nothing, but his fingers began to toy through Daisuke's hair. The other boy fought hard to keep his mind from sliding away under the caress, digging his nails into his skin. I have to think! I have to know what's going on!

"I am the only one you need to think about, Daisuke." There was no edge of command there. It was merely a simple statement of fact. At the same moment, Daisuke felt the collar tightening slightly around his neck. "I am the only one you will think about. Your obedience to me is the central factor of your life."

Daisuke ground his nails harder into his skin and did what he could to pull away. He made more progress than he ever had before with that. He inched a full inch away before Ken's hand tightened just enough to keep him where he was.

"I'm not going to have to teach you with another method, am I?" That insufferable smugness was about to make Daisuke hurt something. Or someone. Ken himself came fairly high on the list of those who would be damaged. "I've been quite generous with you so far. Don't make me regret it."

Pain began to radiate downward from his neck, scorching along his nerves for a brief instant or two. Daisuke flinched away, then straightened up as something else swept through him. It had been so long since he felt it, it took a few seconds before he could name it, but it was there.

Free.

He didn't feel the compulsion to do what Ken said, no matter what. He could think for himself. He wanted out of this place, and he knew he would get out of it. Nothing could stand in his way for long. His friends would be there when he got out, no matter how much time had passed. Even if it had been a thousand years, somehow he'd find them again. It didn't matter that it didn't make sense, what mattered was the faith he had in them, and the faith he knew they had in him.

And with that faith came a second surge, something that ripped the pain away and replaced it with a warmth that filled him from the inside out. Only now did he realize that when he had armor-evolved Lighdramon, there had been nothing inside of him like there usually was. There had been the flash of light, but the feeling of the Digimental itself...

It hadn't been there. That should've been his first clue that something was going wrong around here. No, wait, there were a lot weirder things going on before that. He touched the collar lightly, ignoring the hand going through his hair, and wondered briefly where his goggles were. Had Ken really broken them? Or had someone else? Or were they even broken at all?

There'd been even more things than that. The fact Ken kept doing this. The way that his mind shattered and floated whenever the Kaiser touched him. He wasn't a pet, who got his only pleasure from his master's touch. He was a Chosen Child, who fought against evil wherever it intruded into the Digital World, in whatever form it decided to take.

"Look, Ken, this was really great, but I've got to be going. I've got answers to find, and you're not giving them to me, so thanks but no thanks. I'm out of here."

Daisuke surged up to his feet, snapping the leash away from the Kaiser before anything could stop him. He didn't dare wonder about what could happen if he were right, or wrong. Either way, Ken could stop him. The real Ken had reflexes to put a cat to shame, and in this screwed up world of the mind or illusion, this Ken might have even better ones. Or worse, he might still be able to stop Daisuke with a word. If that happened...

Well, no time to worry about that now! He charged for the door, scampering as fast as his feet could take him. It was almost there, almost within his reach, and then his hands closed on the edges of it. He was through it, and halfway down the hall before he tried looking behind him.

The corridor stretched on in both directions for what looked like forever, white as ivory on all sides, up and down and all around. There were no doors, and it was all as straight as an arrow, no curves or offshoots or anything. Daisuke stared both ways, then took a step back the way he'd come.

This is too weird. Even for Ken. Even for the Digital World.

Maybe it really wasn't Ken. There was always Demon, after all. He could've found a way back, and who knew what kind of wacko powers he'd have after all that time in the Dark Ocean. They'd never even been able to defeat him the first time. But why would he do something like this? Not that Daisuke could pin down offhand just what was going on.

Then there was the possibility of that other person. The one he'd thought of while he was beside Ken. Of course he had even less of an idea on why they would do this than anyone else. And even if he knew why, there was always how that he had to figure out.

"Oh, why bother?" Daisuke finally decided, starting down the hall briskly. "I'll just find out what's going on when I do, and play it by ear from then on." It had worked before. Lots of times. Of course some of the time it had involved a great deal of pain of multiple kinds, but things tended to work out in the end anyway. That was what really counted. Besides, he didn't exactly have any other options at the moment.

Within three steps of his resolution, everything changed around him. Daisuke stared at it, shaking his head slowly. Someone somewhere had a very twisted sense of...something. What had been a simple white corridor now spread out before him in a maze that would've made that guy who drew some of the really weird and screwy paintings of labyrinths run for the headache medicine. Hallways turned back on themselves, doors led into other doors, stairs went nowhere, and there was nothing that resembled a way out. "Someone has definitely been watching too many bad American movies."

He jerked around to stare behind him, jaw dropping at what he saw. Someone somewhere, somehow, had to be doing this on purpose. He'd been suspecting that anyway, but the fact that not only was everything in front of him a labyrinth from hell, but everything behind him was as well tipped the scales in favor of confirmation. All he needed now was some kind of weird dwarf to show up and start grumping at him. He'd pass all the same, if it were up to him.

Okay, this means I have to get through this. I guess. Daisuke looked back over the maze, trying to see anything that might resemble a clue. If there was one in there, it was hiding extremely well. "I hate things like this." Ken had absolutely loved them, though. He adored things that could make him think, challenge his mind so it would get back to the way it was. Not that it really ever had, but Daisuke had never minded. He liked Ken just the way he was.

The cinnamon-haired teen sighed to himself. He wanted this whole mess over with, just so he could figure out what he was thinking that was real and what was someone else's idea of a fun time with his head. He wanted to have his idea of fun, which involved anything from soccer to blowing up things on his game system to hanging out with a small group of people and Digimon in the Digital World. Or just bothering his sister if he got the chance. That was always good for a laugh or ten.

I don't want to do this. Daisuke stared out at the infinite appearing maze, his fists clenching as he sought any sort of shortcut or answer. I really don't want to do this. Where was V-mon? Where were the others? Being on his own wasn't a feeling he liked all that much. Chills whispered down his spine as that solitude began to press in all around him.

Pain shot through his hands as he clenched them again, and he looked down to see the half-crescents where his fingers had dug in while he was trying to escape Ken. That was real? He touched one lightly, wincing even more as the agony increased. Yeah, that was real. Ken might or might not have been, but this was. It was something to hold on to that he'd given himself, unlike the collar.

As if the thought of that had somehow made the collar, or whoever it was that was responsible for it, more 'aware', the band began to tighten faintly around his neck. Daisuke seized onto it, doing his best to loosen it. I have to get this thing off of me. If I can find someone, maybe they can do it. Hopefully whoever he found, if anyone, wasn't going to be the person who had put it on him in the first place. That was the kind of luck he'd been having time and time again.

Time... The word echoed around in his mind as it had an importance he hadn't yet figured out yet. This time. Time and time again. All those times I found myself somewhere and had no idea on where I was or how I'd gotten there. They had something in common that wasn't the collar or that Ken was almost always there.

They'd always ended in time. And the time wasn't all that long, either. The more he thought about things, the more he began to pick up on some patterns. There was always a build-up and some point where things just seemed to stop, and when he was aware of things again, they'd changed. Sometimes a great one, sometimes not, but that was how things had been going.

So maybe if I just wait here, this'll end too? No, things couldn't be that simple. Even if they did end, he couldn't control what would happen next, and that was what he knew he needed to do. Somehow, in some way, he had to find reality. Wherever it was. If such a thing even existed anymore. He'd never had any idea that figuring out the meaning of everything would be such a pain. It had all been so simple before. Friends, family, and fun, and that was all he'd ever needed. None of those were giving him any help right now.

Daisuke... His name floated somewhere between his ears and his mind, in a voice that he'd heard all too recently. Daisuke, where are you? Are you here?

"Ken?" His fists clenched automatically as he tried to pull the word back behind his lips. Even if it was Ken, he had no idea if it was a Ken he wanted to talk to. Or even if it was Ken. How could he be sure? Too many deceptions, too many things twisting his mind around...

Daisuke! Daisuke! I think I heard him! The voice seemed like Ken's, warm and caring and full of a special kind of emotion that Daisuke feared to name, only it was stronger, deeper, and fuller. Older. I think he's here!

Then came something else, something he hadn't heard in a while. Ken, be careful. I know you want to find him, but we have to think logically. It was Iori. He could remember seeing the younger boy in one of those moments, not long after this has begun, but this voice was different, as different as his own reflection had been, and changed by the same way: time. This voice was mature, older, stronger, and more confident.

Daisuke's eyes darted all around, to the sides, above, behind, anywhere he could look. The same thing met his gaze every time: the boundless maze. No Ken. No Iori. No one and nothing but something laid out to confuse and disorient him. Typical.

"Where did you think you heard him?" This time it was Takeru, and his voice had went through the same changes that Iori and Ken's had. "Are you feeling anything, V-mon?"

V-mon! Daisuke lurched himself to his feet, leaning on one of the walls for support as his legs tried to fall from underneath him. "V-mon! Can you hear me? Can any of you hear me?"

"I hear him!" It was V-mon, and his voice hadn't changed, it was still the same wonderful voice, full of life and caring that it had always been. "Where are you, Daisuke?"

That was a really good question. Daisuke would've loved to have an answer for it himself. "I'm not really sure. All I can see is a maze. A really nasty one, too."

"A maze?" Ken's baffled tones caressed Daisuke's ears like golden balm. This was the Ken his heart had yearned for when he'd been staring into the Kaiser's eyes. The Ken that, underneath all the illusions and masks and whatever else had been going on, he had been looking for. Answers began to tease on the edge of his awareness, ready to collapse over him at a moment's notice. "There's no maze around here."

"With everything else that's going on, I wouldn't be surprised if he's seeing something we're not." Koushirou's clipped, informative tones, the same ones he used every time he was on the verge of a solution no one else could see. "He could be right next to us and if the conditions were performed properly, we couldn't see him, or he us."

A snort that could only have come from Yamato. "I think that's pretty obvious, Koushirou, since that's what's actually happening."

His friends. They were all there, all looking for him. Well, at least he'd heard some of them. He was certain they were all there, though. The warm spot inside of him that was their friendship grew only stronger with every second, with every word he could hear of them muttering to themselves about where they were, where he was, and what was going on. Most of it he couldn't hear clearly enough, but it didn't matter. Understanding wasn't what he wanted. Just hearing did all he could have imagined and more.

"How long has this been going on?" Daisuke asked, hoping for an answer that made sense. "I don't even remember how long I've been gone. If I've been gone." He hated sounding so plaintive, but it was true. Besides, if you couldn't whine with your friends, who could you whine with?

It was Ken who answered, and Daisuke melted almost to the point of puddleization at that. "We haven't seen you in almost two weeks. We have no idea where you've been, or where you are now, for that matter. I just woke up and you weren't there that morning."

"Woke up?" Was he hearing that right? Was Ken implying that he'd expected to find Daisuke there when he'd woken up? He could still feel those answers hovering in his mind, as if behind the thinnest of barriers. What could shred it? What would shred it? Could it be shredded?

"Right. I hunted all over the apartment for you, but it was like you'd just vanished." Pain wove all in the voice, and clutched at Daisuke's heart. "There wasn't any sign of a forced entry or anything. I'd thought you'd just left for something, but you ..." Ken hesitated, the ache increasing syllable by syllable, "you never came back."

Koushirou interrupted what might've been an extremely touching moment. Daisuke made a note to get back at him at some point. Maybe screwing up his next date with Miyako. Huh? Oh, that's right. Two years now. Huh. At least I remembered something that didn't have to do with me. Maybe the rest of it's wearing off? Whatever it is. He pulled his attention back to what the older redhead was saying, or tried to.

"Um, could you repeat that?" He had been being mind-screwed for almost fourteen days now. He couldn't be expected to pay that much attention, could he?

"What have you been going through, from your point of view?" Koushirou repeated, sounding a bit annoyed. Oh, so that was what he wanted. That was easy enough.

"Well, I'm not all that sure. I can't remember a whole lot." He hesitated, should he tell them everything? If this was yet another trick, if things had changed and he hadn't noticed, this could all be meaningless. I have to try. "The last thing I'm really sure of is Iori getting the Digimental of Faith. After that, everything's really blurry." He fidgeted a little, wishing he could see more than the twisting corridors and trees all around him. Hearing and not seeing was absolutely nuts. "Except for a few places, I mean. I remember being with Ken...the Kaiser...um...I'm not really sure how to describe it."

He couldn't even hear them talking to each other, if they were. Had they just stopped talking? Were they not there anymore? Daisuke ran things over in his mind, hoping that the fact he could still remember talking them meant something.

"Daisuke..." Ken again, and full of both wonder and fright. "I haven't been the Kaiser in nearly nine years. How old do you think we are?"

He hated how hopeless he sounded right now. It just wasn't him. "I don't even know anymore. I've seen us in school, just like we were kids. I've seen myself in a mirror, grown up. Eighteen at least." He rubbed the lower left side of his face. "And I've got scars in that reflection."

"Of course you've got scars! They're on your face!" Miyako's sharp tones couldn't have changed, no matter what. It added a sense of familiarity that made things a little more normal in his mind. "A rogue Togemon blasted you with his needles there. You've had the scars ever since." She snorted openly. "You kept wondering if they'd make you look hideous, but once the bandages came off, you liked them. Kept saying that they make you look 'rakishly handsome and experienced.'"

Yeah, that sounded like him to him. It sounded more like him than anything the Kaiser had been saying the last few times they'd run into each other. The warmth that was his friendship and his confidence in that friendship was getting stronger and stronger.

"Is there anything else?" Koushirou overrode his girlfriend's annoyed tones. "Anything that could help us get this solved?"

Daisuke ran things through his mind as quickly as he could. There had to be something. Wait, he knew! "It's a little fuzzy, but I think I might know what's going on. Kind of."

"Don't keep it to yourself!" Yamato's patience was obviously reaching its limit. "Spill it!"

"Like I said, it's fuzzy, but I think I met whoever is doing this. I can't remember his name or what he looked like, but he was kind of like you used to be, Ken. All...arrogant and stuck up." Daisuke racked his brain, seeking anything else that could help. "I think I've been running from him, but I can't remember why. Or why he'd let me run if he has been keeping me all this time."

Koushirou grumbled softly, "I wish you could remember more. If I know who is doing this, I might be able to figure out more of how they're doing it and how we can get ourselves back into the same plane of reference. There isn't much we can do until we can all see each other. Then I can find out exactly what kind of physical and mental changes have been done to you and how to reverse them, if possible."

"Don't tell me 'if possible'," Daisuke stepped forward, turning automatically in the direction the genius' voice seemed to be coming from. "I've been putting up with reality being Swiss cheese for way too long, Koushirou."

"Relax, Daisuke, please," Ken interrupted his rant, his voice soothing and relaxing. "We'll find a way to get this all fixed, I promise. You'll be back with us in no time."

Daisuke couldn't bring himself to say anything that would deny Ken's promise. He wanted to believe it, the way people believe in air and light and reality. "I know you will." He did. They'd done stranger things. "If I remember anything else, I'll let you know, I promise."

"No, I'm terribly afraid that you won't be telling them, Daisuke." The voice was unfamiliarly familiar. He knew he'd heard it somewhere, but where he couldn't decide. "I was willing to let you roam around free, but inviting unwanted guests into my kingdom is really quite rude. You're going to have to come back now. I've got some nice things prepared for you so this won't happen again." Thoughtfulness touched the voice. "I see I did make a mild error in having you go unleashed, but that's easily repaired."

In between one word and the next, the voice changed from a stranger's to something as familiar as his own heartbeat. "It's time to come back home, Daisuke. I've missed you." The Kaiser spoke firmly, and Daisuke found himself walking back the way he'd come. The last thing he heard was a fading and familiar voice.

"Daisuke!"

To Be Continued