Enter The Light

Part Thirty Three: Departures

Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Digimon is not mine, I'm only borrowing the characters and some plot points. Don't steal, don't sue, don't forget to moo.

Moo, and enjoy this last chapter.

"Hammer Spark!" shouted a deep and powerful voice, and a flash of lightning-like power extended out over the ocean, a destructive force that instantly deleted the Whamon that had been the sorceress's floating island.

Barely managing to keep his head above water in the torrential waves, Koushiro debated whether it would be wiser to swim to shore or to head towards Jyou and Zudomon, in the midst of the battle. Tentomon, severely weakened, was certainly in no shape for another evolution, and was now resting atop his partner's head, feeling too exhausted to even keep himself in the air.

"I think," Koushiro said, pausing briefly to hold his breath as another wave crashed past him, "that it would be wise to get out of the water."

"Yes," Tentomon agreed, sounding sleepy.

Even though it was some distance back to land, Koushiro struck out for shore, resolutely forcing his arms forward and kicking his legs behind him, grateful that he had long ago learned to keep himself afloat in the water. It was difficult work, however, and his body ached after his sharp collision with the water.

A loud roar behind him made him stop swimming long enough to glance backwards and see that a massive serpentine digimon had risen from the water, screeching in anger. Koushiro recognized the creature as Mega Seadramon, and was not particularly surprised to see two more of the same digimon rise from the waves.

"I should go and help him," Tentomon mumbled weakly, taking to the air.

"No!" Koushiro told him sharply. "You're too weak already – you can't evolve again – you've already been hurt!"

"You're right," his partner answered, sounding sleepy. "Still – do you suppose he'll be all right?"

"He's got to be," the wizard answered simply.

"Hammer Spark!" Zudomon called, his words echoing across the vast expanse of ocean. Again, a bright light filled the sky as the attack's destructive power spread out above the ocean. The waves raged violently, and Koushiro struggled to stay afloat, to take in air rather than water.

The sun was rising overhead – the wizard was aware of a dim light above him – and when he opened his eyes he saw three men in identical navy blue uniforms looking down at him with concern.

"Welcome back, wizard Chosen," one of them said with a sigh of relief.

Koushiro blinked his eyes a few times and then sat up to find that his clothes were still thoroughly drenched, and he was lying on the deck of a small boat in the midst of the city's harbor. "Jyou?" he questioned.

"He's already on shore," came the answer. "After he'd blasted those sea monsters out of the water, he came aground and asked after you. When we heard you'd not come back yet, we sailed out to find you."

"You're lucky we did, too, sir," another of the men told him. "You swallowed quite a bit of water."

"You really think Takaishi will be attacked?" Yamato questioned, a bit of skepticism in his voice, a frown on his face.

"Maybe it will, maybe it won't," Takeru agreed, shrugging lightly. "I've – got this sort of feeling, that's all."

"So, now you're having premonitions?" his brother returned, shaking his head slightly.

"No," the younger defended, sheepishly jamming both his hands into his pockets. "I – I don't know how to explain it…."

They were standing in the gardens in midmorning, Yamato having recently completed his morning exercises. Now that the weather was growing warmer, he preferred to train out of doors rather than in the many rooms set up for that purpose indoors. Leaning against a tree, lost in his own thoughts, Takeru had uncharacteristically declined to spar with his brother, instead voicing his desire to travel to their mother's parents' home.

Yamato sat down on a bench not far away, facing his brother, and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Don't tell me. You have a hunch."

Takeru frowned disagreeably. "Don't mock me."

The elder brother took a long gulp from a jug of water he had carried with him, nearly draining the entire vessel before he came up for air. "I suppose if you really think it's necessary, go," he finally said. "I hope you're not wasting your time."

"We don't know why these villages have crystals in them," Takeru reasoned. "All we know is that the villages that do are villages that have some connection to one of the Chosen. I've got a connection to Takaishi, even if you don't, and I'm Chosen, so maybe there's a crystal there. If there is, I'd like it not to be used to open a portal to the shadow world."

"True," he agreed, shrugging. He downed the rest of his water in another long gulp and then sighed deeply. "Go, then."

"So you don't want to come, then?"

"Not particularly."

"No, I think it's a good idea," Hikari consoled. "Every possible precaution, after all."

They were gathered in Koushiro's space, surrounded by books upon books. Miyako was present as well, though she was nose-deep in a thick volume of magic, and Daisuke, who was lounging, mind elsewhere, on an uncomfortable looking chair, paying little attention to the present.

Takeru nodded, pleased that someone had understood his desire.

"Do you want me to come with you?" she offered. "If an entire army does attack, you might need some help, you know."

He considered. "I wouldn't mind it," he answered truthfully. "If it's not any trouble."

"No trouble," she assured him. "It's part of the duty of a Chosen, and I'm Chosen as much as you are, remember? When shall we leave?"

"Two days, I think," Takeru answered. "If that's all right." He still had a hesitant sort of expression on his face.

"It's perfectly all right. You should learn to trust your feelings, Takeru."

This was so completely opposite of the attitude his brother had shown earlier that day that Takeru could only stare in shock for a moment or two. Hikari returned to the volume she had been perusing, and he tried to think of some sort of response to this.

Taking the glass crystal in one hand, Koushiro shut his eyes and concentrated for a long moment, feeling the magic as it ebbed and flowed through the small object.

"Well?" Jyou questioned, after a long silence had passed and he could no longer contain his curiosity.

"It's definitely magic, and a strange sort of magic at that," the wizard answered, opening his eyes. "It grows stronger and stronger the longer I am near it."

"So we'll need to bring it back to the palace right away, right?" Gomamon concluded.

"I'm not sure. I don't know if it's wise for it to leave this village, and yet…," he hesitated briefly. "It would certainly be safer if it did."

"Well, I'm not about to stay here and put the village at risk," Jyou decided. "I'll leave first thing tomorrow."

The night was quiet, dark, and chilly. A few insects buzzed in the gardens, though not loudly enough to awaken anyone within the palace. The Monochromon murmured and moaned to themselves within their enclosures, and a the spring breezes danced through the clouds, damp with the smell of oncoming rain. Most of the castle's inhabitants slept soundly, undisturbed by the soft sounds of the night.

In a bedchamber that he vaguely remembered surrounded by familiar-feeling things, Daisuke slept fitfully, tossing beneath the heavy covers, his dreams itching at the inside of his mind.

He was floating within a thick, black, liquid-like goop, struggling to move, to swim, to break free of it, but it was sticky and thick and even the slightest movement required a great deal of effort and he was tiring quickly. There was nothing to see but dark gel in every direction, and nothing to hear but muted voices in the distance. When he tried to speak, there was no air, and the black stuff filled his throat and his lungs. He could breathe – or perhaps it was unnecessary in dreams – but he could make no noise.

Suddenly, however, there was a flash of bright light that cut through the thick goop and parted it directly down the middle. From a great distance off, he could hear voices shouting in alarm, but he could not hear their words and the voices were muffled. Daisuke thought to move toward the clear space where the light was, but movement was too difficult and he didn't really have the energy required to fight his way through the black stuff. He could hear the voices more clearly now – they were calling his name, over and over, distant words, but when he tried to shout back he made no noise and swallowed more of the goop.

'Can't,' he thought dejectedly, and felt his arms and legs grow limp, his muscles weaken. There was a part of his mind that fought against this, but it, too, was weakened and tired, and slowly fell silent. He thought he could see something in the middle of the empty space, but his eyes, too, were tired, and slowly began to close.

Something grabbed hold of his hand . At first, he thought to pull away from it, and his heart began to beat faster despite the goop that held it down. He realized he was fearful and tried to open his eyes to see, but could not, for the black goop was sticky and heavy and he was weak and tired.

It was a hand, another hand, that had grabbed on to his own, and then he felt another hand on the side of his face and, distantly (for his ears, too, were filled with the liquid) a voice, barely a whisper, speaking his name.

"Daisuke. Come with me."

He was willing, more than willing to leave the black goop, but he didn't know quite how to do so. He tried to speak but his mouth wouldn't move. Before he could further concern himself with this dilemma, however, the hands, firmly gripping his own, grabbed him and pulled him at a fast speed through the black goop – toward the light, toward the empty space.

The rain was falling steadily, creating a continuous rhythm against the window nearby, almost masking the soft tapping at the door. The tapping continued for a few moments, slowly piercing through the dream-fogged sleep of Daisuke's awareness. He found himself awake, wondering why he was not asleep in the middle of the night, and it was a few moments before he was able to determine that the cause was the tapping. He sat up slowly, still feeling tired, and shuffled through the dark room. A few steps away, he paused, alarmed by the sudden sound of V-mon's loud snore. His partner had apparently not been disturbed.

It was not easy to cross the room in the dark, but he was far too tired to light a candle and the fire had burned out long ago. Daisuke followed the sound of the tapping to the door and then managed to turn the knob.

The brightness of candlelight was too much to bear. He squinted through it for a moment, seeing nothing. He mumbled something without words and then wondered what he had said.

"I'm sorry," said Hikari, on the other side of the bright candle. "Were you sleeping?"

He obviously had been, and she would have to have been very stupid to not figure that out, but Daisuke didn't think either of those things was appropriate to comment on. Instead, mumbled something else without words that sounded vaguely negative, vaguely like 'come in.' He stepped away from the door and Hikari and the candle stepped in.

There was an armchair near the fireplace and Hikari used the candle to light the fire, warming the cold room. As the space warmed, Daisuke became slowly acclimated to the brightness. He sat on the edge of his bed and squinted in her direction until she came into focus and his eyes were not crying out in pain.

"Are you all right?" she asked with some concern. "You look…."

She had trailed off, he guessed, because she didn't want to say something unflattering or insulting, which was likely the only sort of truthful thing that could be said. The unfinished sentence hung in the air for a few minutes before Daisuke interrupted it with a yawn. "Tired?" he finished.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "You were sleeping."

"Not really," he said, managing to be mostly coherent now. "I was dreaming, and I'm glad to be done with it, because it was a tiring dream." He was frowning now, rather severely, as though it had been an unpleasant experience.

Hikari didn't seem to quite know what to say to that. She waited until an appropriate amount of time had passed and then changed the subject. "I couldn't sleep."

Now it was his turn to not quite know what to say. He blinked at her for a few minutes, his mind slowly shifting around possibilities. "Um…," he said finally when nothing else had been said.

She pulled her feet up onto the edge of the chair and hugged her knees to her chest. It was still cold, even though the fire was burning brightly now nearby. "I'm leaving tomorrow," she said after a long moment had passed.

He nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "Takaishi."

"I wanted to make sure you were all right with that," she said then, turning her head to face him. For a moment, he said nothing, staring blankly at her as though she had spoken in a foreign tongue and he had understood none of her words. "Are you?"

He blinked once, and then twice, before he looked away, his eyes resting on a section of the wall above the fireplace. "I don't think you need my permission, princess," he finally answered. His eyes darted back toward her and then toward the floor.

A sigh. "No, not permission. I'm not talking about that," Hikari disagreed. "I'm...I don't know how to explain."

There was a long silence. "You can travel to Takaishi if you wish," he told her. "I certainly won't try to stop you."

"No," she said, shaking her head, "I didn't think you would." She sighed again. "The last time I left you…. I think it might be a good idea for us to be apart for a little while. Perhaps then you…you won't feel the…the spell quite so much." She was watching the flames dance as she spoke, hugging her legs, resting her chin on her knees.

"Last time you…left me?" he echoed, not having heard much more than the beginning of her words. "What - ?"

"You don't remember? No, I don't suppose you would…. I left you, in the forest, when you told me that I should, and then…."

He shook his head almost violently. "Don't, please. Don't blame yourself for this."

"But…."

"I remember," Daisuke interrupted. "Don't blame yourself for this. You're the one who saved me."

"I didn't…," she disagreed. "I would have…I would have let you die. It was Takeru – it was Takeru's idea. If he hadn't spoken up…." She shuddered and hugged herself tighter.

"You can't blame yourself for that," he returned. "There was an illusion."

"I should have known."

"Hikari." He crossed the space between them and crouched before her so that he could meet her eyes. "You place far too much blame on yourself, princess. You are the one who saved me – and I don't mean that day. I'm not sure he would have been willing to kill me – it was a ploy."

"A – but why?"

He shrugged, frowned severely at himself. "I don't know. There are still too many gaps in my memories." A moment of silence passed then. "I think there's somewhere I need to go, too." It was an idea that had just occurred to him at that moment, and the statement surprised him.

It seemed to surprise Hikari as well, for now she stared at him as though he had spoken in a foreign language. "Where - ?" she began, and then shook her head. "No, no. Go where you wish," she said, stopping herself. "Promise me only that you'll be careful. I'd rather you didn't go alone – if it might be dangerous...but…please be careful." Her eyes were sad now, her mind thinking dark and depressing thoughts. She had already thought him dead once – if he were to truly die...no, she couldn't think in that direction.

There was a flash of a mischievous smile in his eyes, an expression that was truly his own. "I am always careful," he answered in a sincere voice, though his eyes betrayed him.

She laughed, a mocking sort of giggle that she swallowed almost before it was out. "You are not," she disagreed, some inner part of her heart feeling a great relief.

He shrugged lightly, not disagreeing, the expression in his eyes saying, secretly, that he knew she spoke the truth. Hikari met his eyes and held his gaze for a few moments until she sensed his discomfort and looked away.

"When you smile," she confessed, her voice barely a whisper. "When you smile, you seem to be yourself again. I am glad of that."

Ok, so that's that for this particular chapter. :deep breath, wipes sweat from brow: Hope you all enjoyed. Obviously, I'm not going to ever be finished with this universe, so stay tuned. The next story should begin within a week or so, barring major disasters. I've already started on it, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, reviewing, and I hope you all have enjoyed.