Story: Fade In, Fade Out||Chapter: The Curtain Risen
Chapter: 13-15||Words: 4,667||Total: 60,166
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.
In all of his life, Daisuke had only been this glad to see the rest of the team once: when they'd shown up when he was facing Ken down and he'd thought that they'd been the Kaiser's prisoners. All eleven of them were there, complete with Digimon, and every one looked about as angry as he could imagine.
It was a sight of pure, undiluted beauty. And Ken looked pretty awesome too, standing there with Stingmon right beside him, all fire and fury. It wasn't often he broke out of his calm reserve, and it sent a chill of pleasure down Daisuke's spine to know that this was because of him, more or less.
Apparently getting kidnapped had some good side effects. The reunion was probably going to be pretty special, too.
"Kondo." Mori turned his gaze to his assistant, who looked completely unashamed of herself. "What have I told you about letting vermin into the fortress?"
The young woman just shrugged. "Actually, they're the cleanup crew I hired. They're here to clean you out, Kondo. You've gone too far and this has to stop. What you're trying to do isn't going to help anyone, least of all yourself. Or Saburo!"
"That's enough, Kondo." Mori's voice dripped in ice, then he looked back at the newcomers. "I suppose you want to know what I've done to Motomiya and all the rest of it." The ice vanished almost at once, replaced by casual contempt.
"We can discus that later, once you've let him go." Ken declared, taking a step forward. "That includes taking that thing from around his neck, too."
Mori chuckled softly as he came back over to Daisuke, running one finger across the collar around the redhead's neck. "You mean this? I don't know, I rather like having your boyfriend obedient to my every whim and wish. He's not quite that good for you is he?"
"Like I'd want him to be in the first place. Half the fun of being with him is not knowing what he's going to do next." Ken just snorted, and Daisuke grinned. Another memory clicked into place, of the first date the two of them had ever went on. Daisuke had been the one to ask Ken out, and they'd went to get coffee together. It had been Takeru who had suggested that, really. Something simple, to get them some quiet time with just the two of them, that had been what he'd said.
When Daisuke had wound up describing his last soccer game, complete with wild waving of his arms and legs that had wound up knocking both of their coffee cups into their respective laps, they had mutually agreed not to do this again. At least not sitting at a table and drinking coffee. The dating, they both couldn't get enough of.
"Strange, I was thinking that was one of the things I hated most about him." Mori's hand trailed alongside Daisuke's neck, passed his ear teasingly, and began to toy in his hair. "He's much more manageable like this."
"You can stop talking about me like I'm not here any time now." Daisuke had long since gotten tired of being ignored. "You heard what Ken said, anyway, Mori. Let me out of here, and you might not get your butt kicked. Too badly. Maybe."
"Quiet." Mori's order was casual, and Daisuke felt as if his lips suddenly couldn't move. His captor looked back at the others, ruffling Daisuke's hair still. "Now, I suppose you think you're going to just force me to give up my toy here, while I somehow just babble out to you exactly what makes me hate Ichijouji so much."
Takeru shook his head, faintly grinning. "No, Kondo told us everything already, really. She was very helpful."
"I can tell. She likes to be helpful to everyone, it seems." Mondo looked at her again, and she just shrugged, just as devoid of shame as she'd been the first time. "That's really a bad habit. You should try to break it."
Kondo just shrugged casually, not looking as if it mattered to her. "You wanted revenge, Mori. I thought it was all right to help you, if you'd just figure out that really wasn't what you wanted after all. But like I said..."
Mori cut her off irritably. "Yes, yes, went too far, too much, must stop. That's been covered already. So, you told them about Saburo. How very sweet of you. And I'm certain you felt such a connection with me, didn't you, Ichijouji?" He sneered at Ken, who just looked back at him, with hints of compassion and kindness in his violet eyes. Daisuke felt his heart melting all over again. How could anyone ever want to hurt someone who had eyes like that?
As well as many other major body parts that were simply gorgeous. It boggled him every bit as much as calculus and astronomy did, maybe even more.
Well, not as much as calculus.
"Kind of," Ken answered Mori. He folded his arms across his chest, staring at the other man like grim death. "And then you did something that neither Osamu nor I would have ever done: brought someone else who had nothing to do with this into your personal problem. You hurt Daisuke."
Mori laughed, running his fingers through Daisuke's hair again. If he hadn't been ordered to stay quiet, Daisuke thought he might well have started purring or something. I thought it was Ken I was reacting to when this would happen before. Maybe it wasn't. The thought had one single effect on him: he wanted to throw up. Liking this maniac's fingers on him? If anyone was going to pet his hair and make him purr, it had better be Ken and not some idiot who was just using his image to screw with Daisuke's head!
"So that makes you somehow better than I am?" Mori didn't even wait for Ken to answer before he kept on going. "You act as if something like this matters. It doesn't. I would've taken anyone that would've hurt you. I thought about taking that partner of yours, but he wouldn't have given me half the enjoyment that Motomiya here has."
He makes it sound so dirty. Daisuke mentally shuddered at the way Mori was talking. He didn't think anything like that had happened, but there was no way he could be certain. Who knew how long the collar had really been on him? He knew that he'd been away for two weeks. That left a lot of time he had no idea of.
Now if only he could get some answers here. Obviously they knew what was going on. It would be appreciated if they could remember him, who had the memory of Swiss cheese right now. He turned to look at Ken, putting all the pleading he could into his eyes, hoping that his boyfriend got the picture.
"What you've done to Daisuke hasn't changed what happened to your brother one little bit." Ken seemed to have, as he started talking to Mori again. "He's still gone. And I had nothing to do with it, and I never have!"
"Is that so?" Mori just snorted, shaking his head. "Then Kondo didn't tell you as much as you think she did. If she did, you'd know that you and your own brother have as much to do with this as I do."
Koushirou cleared his throat quite politely. "Actually, if one were to be technically accurate, your brother Saburo is the only one who truly could be said to be at blame, if you wish to lay accusations at one particular person. It would be more appropriate for our entire society to be where the blame really arises, though, and our insistence on excellence and achievement above all else."
Great. Koushirou sounded as if he were in a culture class or something like that. Why couldn't they just lay it out simply for the poor kid with the collar around his neck? He wished there were some kind of time limit on the orders the collar gave. He wanted to be able to talk again so much.
Oh, wait, there went his brains again, floating off as Mori caressed his hair slowly, rubbing each strand individually before going on to the next. He couldn't hear some of what was being said now, and that was getting really annoying, and it felt so good to just lay here and not think, no matter what...he could drift away forever like this.
"Daisuke!" Huh? What? Oh! Ken! Daisuke snatched his head away from Mori's touch, shooting the most annoyed look he could at his captor. What on Earth had he been thinking? He wanted a hot shower, right now. One lasting a good four or five hours at least, until he could wash that touch of Mori's out of his hair and out of his mind.
"I don't believe you've ever made him feel like that, have you, Ichijouji?" Mori sneered, folding his arms over his chest. "You had to yell to get him to notice you. He notices me no matter what. I just barely have to touch him."
Daisuke couldn't speak, but he snorted rather audibly. There was no way he couldn't notice Mori. The guy was standing right beside him, and held the keys to his freedom! But he still wanted to know what was going on, and who that Saburo guy was, other than Mori's brother.
"As I was saying, it's more the fault of our collective culture than any one person, where your brother's death is concerned." Koushirou had the slightly irked tones of someone who had been interrupted.
"Our culture?" Mori really wasn't taking this well. "My brother killed himself because of his so-called genius brother!" One finger was firmly pointed at Ken, who didn't so much as flinch from the accusation.
"Saburo killed himself because Osamu beat him for a scholarship when they were ten years old." Ken said quietly, apparently having noticed the complete confusion in Daisuke's eyes. "Something they'd both worked towards for over a year."
Daisuke shook his head; he knew that pressure to pull off things like that was beyond enormous, but it had never occurred to him to kill himself if he'd failed at it. He'd just try again later, or go for something else. His parents had always thought he was a little weird like that, after all. He could see why that would get Mori a little on the irked side.
"And that's why I'm going to take what you have from you, Ichijouji." Mori was virtually shaking with rage. "Because you did the same thing to me. You stole the same scholarship! And you never even used it!"
"I couldn't, not after what had happened." Ken touched the back of his neck lightly, shaking his head. "I literally couldn't."
"That's not my problem, is it, Ichijouji? You took something I wanted more than anything since my brother died. You Ichijoujis took him from me, and then you took that from me, and then you had the nerve to be so damned condescending when BelialVamdemon was draining our strength from us! Both of you!" Mori's eyes flashed in a kind of anger that Daisuke couldn't ever remembering having seeing in his entire life. "Believe in yourself! Believe in your dreams!"
Miyako shook her head, confusion in every swish of her hair. "What's so wrong about that? It's what worked, and you did it then, remember? So what changed?"
"I grew up." Mori bit the words out. "The only dreams I want to have now are the ones of revenge. All of you were honored and respected and treasured for what you'd done for our world." Bitter sarcasm and mockery laced every single syllable that fell from his lips. "What did we, the Dark Spore Children, get? No, we're not Chosen Children, no matter what you wanted to try and tell us. You were Chosen. By that idiot Gennai or Qinlongmon or what have you. We were pulled in by our fantasies, by our pain, to feed evil."
"You chose not to, though!" Iori spoke up for the first time. "You sided with us! If you believed in our cause then, why are you doing all of this now?" Daisuke could've cheered. That was the kind of question he would've asked, he thought. Well, if Iori hadn't asked it for him first.
"I said it once already. I grew up. Unimon keeps trying to feed me the same line, but I don't believe it anymore. What it all boils down to is that I want revenge. You and yours took from me, Ichijouji, so I will take from you."
Ken started forward, then froze as Mori placed a hand on Daisuke's arm. "Mori. Let him go. This is between you and me. Hurting him won't take him from me. It'll just make me remember him forever."
"The way he remembered all of you?" Mori smirked, motioning to his scientific collection of vials and other things. "The Mushrooms of Forgetfulness can poke several holes in memories, you know. I certainly know. I know a lot of things. You could almost say I know ...everything." Mori laughed darkly, eyes gleaming with shadows and ice. "Almost everything, at least. Everything he has forgotten, I know. It was easy to work out a way to put them where I could get them if I wanted to. To make them easier to twist and manipulate the way I wanted them to go. It all helped to make him obey me even faster."
This was getting weirder and weirder by the moment. Considering how weird things had been before this, that was saying something. He didn't quite know what it was saying, but it was something.
"What are you talking about?" It was Yamato who spoke, eyes gleaming in sapphire anger. Well, it was nice to know that Yamato was capable of reacting like this to a threat to him. Daisuke knew the two of them were friends, but as far back as he could remember (as laughable as that really was right now) he couldn't recall a time when they'd actually close. That bothered him, quite a bit. Once they were out of this, he decided to fix that. Maybe a 'friendship retreat' or something like that. It sounded good, at least.
"This." Mori pulled a silver-blue disk out from somewhere and displayed it like a trophy. It reminded Daisuke vaguely of either a CD or one of those old computer floppy disks or something. "All of his memories are on here. The ones that he can remember, and the ones that he can't. If I destroy this, and then dose him up with an extra strong extract of the Mushrooms, then the Motomiya Daisuke you knew will be gone forever. He will never remember anything of your time together. He will be my puppet forever, and he will enjoy it."
That was not good. Daisuke shifted around the best he could, trying to get as far from Mori as possible. That wound up being about three inches, three inches that vanished as Mori took a step towards him.
"That's enough, Mori." Kondo entered the conversation, coming over quickly to seize him by one wrist. "You're not going to do any of that. I don't know what you think you want, but I know you, and this isn't what you're like."
"I wasn't like this before. I am now." Mori pushed her away from him sharply, then closed his hand around the disk. A sharp cracking noise sounded, and when he opened his hand, silver-blue dust fell from it. He brushed his hands off lightly, then pushed her to the side once more, heading over a rack of syringes. "I think it's time I showed you all just how serious I am being about all of this."
"No, Mori." The denial this time came from Unimon, as he placed himself in between the angered man and the stuff on the counter. "I agree with Kondo and the Chosen. This has to stop."
"I am getting so tired of hearing that!" Mori growled dangerously at the unicorn Digimon. "Will no one let me have the revenge I deserve? Is there something so utterly wrong about crushing the heart and soul of the person who has been responsible for my losing so much?"
A flash of violet hair and a sharp strike across Mori's face echoed around the room, and if Daisuke had been able to, he would've cheered Miyako right then and there. "You keep claiming you grew up, but all you did was grow stupid! Just because you didn't kill yourself and you tried all kinds of weird other things doesn't mean you were any better than your brother! Even if you destroyed Daisuke's memories completely, we'd still remember him! You can't take that way, no matter what you try!"
Mori started to push past her, but she shoved him back a little more, fury outlining her brown eyes. She hadn't even begun decently, it seemed. "When Ken lost that scholarship, did you even think about trying for it again later? Or did you just quit trying? And does it matter if you're a 'Chosen Child' or not? Shouldn't you be a person first?"
"I tried! But then someone else took the scholarship! I started to watch Ichijouji, and I saw how even without the Dark Spore's power, he had everything I could've ever wanted!" Mori was almost spitting in his fury. "He had all of you! None of you even knew my name until this! And none of you cared!"
Jyou shook his head sadly, an expression becoming quite common to this situation. "We can't know everyone. We have our own lives, too." Real regret touched his voice. Daisuke was almost certain he was thinking about his own brothers, his own hard fought nights of studying, and seeing others succeed around him.
"And mine wasn't important enough. Was anyone's, other than your own?" Mori sneered, whirled back to Daisuke and stalking there grandly. "Reasons and the past aren't going to matter that much shortly. I'll be quite happy once I completely destroy every chance you've ever had of saving your little boyfriend, Ichijouji."
Taichi had his 'I wish I could smack this guy from where I'm standing' expression on. Daisuke had seen it quite a few times before, usually when some of his soccer team got a little on the stupid side. "And all this time when you've been plotting revenge and doing who knows what else, you could have been doing something really constructive with your life, like finding a different kind of scholarship, something you could go for, and finding your own love life!"
"But that would've left him with his, and I can't stand for that," Mori spoke as if that were the kind of thing anyone with a functioning brain should have been able to figure out. Daisuke was beginning to think that this guy had been cracked since long before Oikawa and his dark spore copies had found their way to him. "I'm going to take what he has. Then he won't have it." Yeah, definite wacko material here.
"He's lost it." Takeru muttered, and Daisuke wanted to tell him it was nice he could finally catch up with the rest of them. He had to get this collar off before it drove him off the brink of sanity. He'd been teetering on it long enough.
Mori toyed lightly with the collar, then slowly began to unstrap Daisuke, not taking his eyes off of the Chosen and the Digimon there. "You can say all you want that it's your memories that will keep him as he is, but it won't change the fact he'll be gone. You'll never make another memory of him. I'll be the only one who knows the Motomiya who once was. Not that he was really worth knowing before. All prickly and irky and disobedient. He's become much more tolerable under my teachings. I think I'll enjoy keeping him around for a while."
"Then what you have isn't Daisuke, but just a pretty little pet that you made from him." Ken declared firmly. "My Daisuke will always be with me."
His Daisuke. Daisuke liked the way that sounded. His Daisuke. His Ken. That sounded even better. Maybe they could get away from here and discuss a few things that could evolve from that. He wondered how Ken would look with a nice tasteful leather collar on or something like that. He didn't care how he looked with it. He'd had enough of this kind of thing for the next couple of centuries.
"Stand up, Motomiya," Mori ordered abruptly as the last of the straps came undone. Daisuke then was on his feet, swaying somewhat as he did. He'd never been seasick before, and he didn't want to start now. His stomach wasn't quite feeling like co operating where that was concerned, though. Up and down, all around...ohhh, he wanted to sit back down.
"No!" A flash of movement, this time someone entirely different. Daisuke felt as if he could've recognized that person in his sleep, no matter how much of his memory was gone. He did recognize them, after all. It was Ken. He still bore his Rocket nickname, and he deserved it a thousand times over.
Ken's arms closed around Daisuke, pulling him away from Mori and back over to the group. "You're not going to take him away from me, not now, not ever again!"
"I already have, Ichijouji." Mori didn't seem all that bothered to see his captive pulled away, and that worried Daisuke. His legs felt a little stronger underneath him, but not nearly enough. He might've been able to take a few steps, but running even a ten-yard dash was totally out of the question. "He still wears my collar, if you missed it."
"Does that mean if we didn't miss it, that he's not?" Jyou asked, one pale blue eyebrow quirked. Daisuke decided to giggle at that, as soon as he got the strength, and the ability to speak on his own again.
"Amused, Kido, but not amusing enough." Mori looked at Daisuke, a thoughtful expression visible in his dark eyes. "So you think that you've retrieved your love, and nothing will keep you apart again, is that so?"
Ken's only answer was to tighten his arms around Daisuke. The redhead enjoyed the embrace, closing his eyes a little. For the first time in forever, he really felt as if he were home. The light masculine scent of Ken in his nostrils brought up a thousand more memories, and being near his friends was trigger ten thousand more. The mixture in his veins was burning away faster and faster with each moment, and he relaxed. It was over, no matter what Mori said or thought. It was over.
"Motomiya, stand up straight, and away from Ichijouji," Mori ordered. Daisuke straightened up at once, taking a step away from Ken before he'd even realized that he'd done it.
He meant it! The collar still kept him tamed and obedient to Mori, no matter what. There had to be something that could stop that!
"Daisuke..." Ken touched his shoulder, concern in his eyes. "Daisuke, are you all right?"
"He can't answer you, Ichijouji. I told him to be quiet, remember?" Mori laughed softly. "But I'll be generous this time. You may answer Ichijouji. Once you've done that, be silent until I grant you permission to speak again."
Daisuke turned to Ken, a faint smile rippling across his lips. "I'm all right, Ken. Well, except for having this thing around my neck which means I've got to listen to the jerk over there. But other than that, absolutely fine."
Ken's lips twitched a little as he gently caressed Daisuke's cheek for a moment. Each of them stood there, gazing into the other's eyes, for what felt like forever.
"That's enough of that. If you two get any more sappy, I just might get sadistic." Mori growled, a dangerous edge to his tone. Daisuke turned enough to see Kondo chuckling softly, shaking her head.
"Mori, you've really lost it. You can't even tell that you haven't done anything to them that you wanted to. All you did is make everything between them stronger. I always thought that would be the end result, anyway, but I wanted to help you anyway. To see if you were right, even though I knew you weren't." She took a few steps towards him, holding one hand out. "You can give it up, you know. You can start over. It won't hurt you to just let it all go."
Mori shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Daisuke and Ken. "No, Kondo. I can't. I won't. If nothing I've done has broken them, then I will do it another way."
"Don't you get it yet? You can't do anything!" Takeru growled, eyes flashing in rich anger. "They're together! They love each other more than you can get through your thick skull! You had to pretend to be Ken to even get Daisuke to look at you, and you were being him when Daisuke didn't even think they could be friends! And it still didn't work! What more do you want, something written in stone? Is that what it would take to convince you that there's nothing that you, or anyone else, can do to get this revenge that you want, for no reason?"
Mori turned slightly towards the blond, a faint hint of confusion flickering in his eyes. "No reason? Everything you've heard and it's no reason?"
"So your brother and you both went kind of overboard. You should've tried harder, or just tried something different. You made wrong choices, but you're not the only one who has." Takeru pointed out. Daisuke seriously gave a thought to hugging the Chosen of Hope. "So start again. There are still scholarships and jobs you can have, and if you work hard enough, no one can beat you at it. Even if they do, just try again." He blinked for a moment, shaking his head. "Daisuke, I'm glad you're back. I'm starting to act like you and it's scaring me."
For a moment, everything was quiet. Mori appeared to be thinking over what Takeru had just said. Daisuke began to reach back to Ken, when the madman's voice cracked like a whip. "Step away from them, Motomiya, and do not go back unless I give you permission. If they try to pull you back, stop them in any way you can."
Daisuke winced as his body obeyed, moving to one side and away from them. Ken stared after him, hurt and agony visible in his eyes as Daisuke glanced briefly over his shoulder, one hand half-raised as if to pull him back.
"If nothing I've done has made a difference, then I'll just have to do something that will. My brother took his own life, Ichijouji, and yours died of an accident. But what I'm going to do won't be any kind of accident at all."
Daisuke could see it, out of the corner of one eye. A snapped word froze him where he stood, unable to take his eyes off of the slender knife that Mori had pulled from somewhere. What kind of a psychotic evil villain carried something like this on him? Worse than just having it, he was aiming it, right at Ken.
"Time's up, Ichijouji." Mori clipped the words out, his arm jerking forward and the dagger flipping straight to where Ken stood frozen in shock: and to where Takeru stood, once the blond had brutally shoved Ken to one side and the knife sank into his flesh all the way up to the hilt.
To Be Continued