"These blue eyes gave nothing, expected nothing. They held too much knowledge. They had seen too much in their six years—too much sorrow, too much pain. They had looked beneath the bed and discovered that there really were monsters lurking in the shadows."
Description of Raistlin Majere's eyes at six, The Soulforge

Recommended Music:
Scene 1: "Open Your Eyes," Witch Hunter Robin
Scene 2, part one: "I Am Free," Xenosaga II
Scene 2, part two: "Futatsu no Negai," D.N. Angel
Scene 3: "Infection," Chihiro Onitsuka
Scene 4, part one: "Melodie," Noir
Scene 4, part two: "Bridge 04," .hack/SIGN

Black Wings
Chapter Two: "Dusk"

Kage Tenshi, commander of the Mt. Fuji Resistance team at merely fourteen, repeatedly smashed his head on one of the wooden support beams that held up the underground base. It had only been constructed with the help of many diggers and a small army of Digmon borrowed from the Yokohama team. It had been built to withstand floods, earthquakes, and all other sorts of natural disasters. And with the way the beam hadn't broken from his constant head-banging, Kage wondered if it had been built with his temper in mind.

"Hey," softly called the voice he'd quickly learned as Osamu's. He let his head rest against the wood. "Throwing a fit of anger is usually my job."

"Did you manage to get him out?" Kage asked. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ichijouji shake his head.

"I didn't have nearly enough strength. It'll be a while before I can rescue slaves that way."

"Hmm."

"I take it you saw the news?" Osamu commented, eyeing Tenshi's computer. The young commander detached his head from the wall and walked over to it.

"I've seen some bad propaganda in the world today and in history. I've seen the World War II recruitment encouragements of Hitler's Germany, Roosevelt's America, and even our country under Tojo. But I've never seen anything this disgusting. The killings and mutilations blamed on us! And all because of that fucking—"

"Reiyama?"

"If that's the name of the guy who did it. Personally, I blame the Kaiser."

"Like how your sister blames Kouji?"

Kage hid a sly smile. "I take it you've kept watch over more people than just Minamoto."

"Yes, although I was unable to prevent the tragedies that crossed your path, and Miss Ayamisa's." Both were silent for a moment. "She's in the base too. Alice, one of my co-conspirators, tried to work things out so that both she and Kouji could escape. Our plans failed."

"Maybe just here," Kage mused.

"Eh?"

"You came from another world, right? So it's possible that there are other versions of our worlds, other universes. Maybe there's one where this atrocity never happened."

"I hope so. I wouldn't wish this on anybody." Osamu glanced at the computer again. "Any luck breaking into Gennai's system?"

"Actually, yes. I've got most of the file on your brother downloaded."

"Sorry I can't help more."

"It's all right. Besides, this serves as a good lesson to them on not being so sure that no one can break that system. You report to that Gennai guy, right?"

"Sometimes. Mostly it's Qinglongmon. He also thinks Gennai can learn from this experience. And speaking of learning, what about those idiots with the biological weapon?"

"I yelled at Takamoto for a while, then turned him over to Takuya. I almost pity him for crossing Takuya while he's still furious over last night's events—I think he might have killed him just with the look of anger on his face. I was a little easier on Miyagami, but he shouldn't have kept this a secret for so long." After a brief silence, he added, "I hate to think what would have happened if he shot anyone but you. And Miyagami said that Dr. Akagami—one of our doctors—might be a traitor. I have Himi and Gabumon looking into it while I finish the digivices."

"Oh, that reminds me," Osamu recalled, handing over the shackle. "In one of my own fits of anger, I pulled that from the wall."

Kage eyed him with a raised brow. "In anger?"

"I told you it was usually my job to go off like that. If you ever meet my brother Ken, he'd tell you about my temper."

"I'll keep that in mind." He turned the cuff over in his hand, observing some kind of soft, gray building material. "What's—"

"Don't touch it!" Osamu warned just as Kage was about to put his finger to it. "I'm not sure what it is, but it stung me. And as a general rule, I normally don't feel pain."

"Hmm," Kage replied, scraping it with a piece of paper and into a glass. "If Takamoto's still alive by the time Takuya's through with him, I'll have him take this to either Iwahara or Yamamoto for examination."

"In the meantime, I think I'll test my limits in phasing through objects while carrying something. Do you remember where Alice—the blonde Gothic girl—put those clothes of Hikari's?"

"God, I don't know. Check one of those boxes."

Osamu dug through a few cardboard boxes against the wall before finding the tie-dyed tank top and denim shorts they'd brought. Originally, his plan was to test how much he could transport in and out of the base before attempting to rescue Kouji and his family. Alice's work had prevented the need for that plan, but now it served as a good backup.

"I hope it fits her," he whispered. "Toss me an instant oatmeal pack from that parcel."

"Uh, sure." Kage threw it over and Osamu caught it half-distractedly. "Why?"

"There's someone who could use some comfort right now. Maybe a fresh change of clothes and some better food can help."

"Ayamisa?" He nodded. "All right then. I'll see you later." As Osamu left, Kage went back to finishing the last of his artificial digivices, looking up every now and then to check the download progress on his computer. The answers they needed so desperately had to lie there.

A disappointed Nari Ayamisa walked her daughter out of a meeting of the Yokohama Resistance force. She berated Sakiko throughout the whole walk, but the girl rolled her eyes and ignored the words.

"…And furthermore—Sakiko, are you listening to me?"

She sighed in exasperation. "Yes, Mother."

"Don't use that tone with me, young lady. Your father and I have been worried sick about you—"

"Finally caring about something more than your job? My work here is done." She began to walk farther away, but her mother grabbed her arm and turned her around.

"No, you're not, Sakiko. Now listen, I know I've been neglecting you. I'm not the perfect mother; I'm not the perfect anything. I hold no claims to godhood. But I promise I'll make it up to you."

"How?"

"I got a call from Dr. Tenshi—" Sakiko groaned in disgust. "Don't start with me. He's found a young boy in the Kaiser's base who desperately needs to be taken out of there. How would you like to have a brother, at least for a little while?"

"How little is 'little'?"

"Until we find his parents, if they're still alive."

"I'll think about it."

"I need an answer now. It's either we take him in or Dr. Tenshi does, and he has two kids of his own. It's going to be hard for him to raise another."

Sakiko sighed. "What did Dad say?"

"He wants to wait to know what you think. You both might have to share a room or one of you will have to take the couch."

She sighed again. This was a big decision they were trusting her with. "Just one question, Mom: will you ignore him like you did with me?"

"Sakiko, I'm not going to ignore—" The unmistakable sound of a gunshot interrupted her. Her eyes widened as blood from her chest splattered on her daughter. Her body slumped forward as Sakiko stepped back in horror, looking up in the direction of the sniper. She didn't remember much after this, except that she ran madly for home.

"Sakiko, what's wrong?" her father asked.

"Someone shot Mom," she squeaked in fear. Her father walked closer to her. "We were arguing again. She wanted to adopt that kid in the Kaiser's base. I told her not to ignore him like she did with me. Then somebody shot her."

Her father hugged her tightly, allowing her to muffle her sobs in his sweater. The war hadn't been real until now. The truth was blaringly obvious in front of her: "The Kaiser killed Mom; we're next."

"We need to hide somewhere," Sakiko breathed. "Where will we go?"

"Don't you worry about that now," her father gently whispered. "Just try and sleep. In the morning, we'll think of something."

Sakiko didn't even want to go upstairs into her room. She just lay on the couch and her father placed a blanket over her. He fell asleep on the floor soon after. But in the late afternoon, he was no longer there.

She rubbed her bleary and teary as she looked around. "Dad?" she called. "Dad?" A shadow came from the kitchen. "Dad?"

There he was, all right—hanging by a cord around his neck. Rigor mortis, the stiffening of muscles after death, had just set in, so a note was firmly clenched in his hand. Sakiko skimmed through it and crushed it. She would never remember the words, but the gist of suicide letter was about wanting to protect her.

"Another lie," she commented. "You never cared. You would have made lousy parents to that kid anyway. He's better off as Dr. Tenshi's son." She spat on the floor in disgust and left, never to return ever. Ever…

"Miss Ayamisa?" called a new voice, pulling her out of the reaches of her subconscious memories. She cracked open her once again teary and bleary eyes to see the young man from the day before, the one who'd asked her if allowing her savior to be beaten and forced to watch his family's death was how she repaid him.

"Who are you?" she questioned. "And why are you here? I'm supposed to be in isolation."

"I'm Osamu Ichijouji. I came to deliver some things to you." He handed her a pink-and-purple tie-dyed tank top and blue denim shorts. They weren't really her style—she preferred the American Gothic—but they were better than the same old clothes over and over again.

"Do you have anything white?" she asked.

"No," he answered. "But I can try to get something—a blouse or skirt or something. I think everyone will understand that you want to mourn. Go ahead and change. I won't watch; I'll be busy trying to figure this thing out." He held up a brown packet with English directions all over it. Deciding to trust him, she walked over to the shower, away from the glass window that allowed other inmates to see her.

"I, um, heard you talking in your sleep," he informed. "I wasn't trying to listen, but it's hard to ignore. I'm sorry about your mother and father."

"It's not your fault," she commented.

"Were you close to them?"

"What?"

"Close to them," he repeated. "Were you a close-knit family, or did you have issues with them?"

She was silent as she came over and sat down. He seemed to know exactly what she was thinking and feeling. It was scary.

"I'm sorry," Osamu apologized after a moment. "I didn't mean to reopen old wounds."

"No."

"Huh?"

"No. We were close up until the Kaiser took over everything. Then Mom started working a lot. She wanted to expose the horrors that were going on here. Dad helped as much as he could. It wasn't that I was being ignored that bothered me. I just couldn't accept that it was real. Nothing was real. The war was not real. I went to a couple of funerals for Resistance officers and friends of my parents, but I never saw any of the devastation as real. I just wanted to be allowed to play my little game, to fight for a cause I didn't believe in or know anything about. Imperials, Resistance—it was all the same to me. Mom and Dad were fine with me having Imperial friends, but they didn't want me anywhere near the Resistance. So I joined with Yokohama, just to piss them off. It was all just a game for me. I was so stupid."

"Believe me, I've heard that before," Osamu assured.

"No aspect of the war was real to me until my parents died. Up until then, I could shoot a man in the forehead and call it a day. It didn't matter whose side he was on; if he got in my way, he was gone. I don't know what it was I was thinking—maybe that if I didn't care, then nothing terrible would happen to me?" She sighed. "But then it did happen. Somebody shot Mom with less heart than I showed when I killed my enemies. It woke me up. I saw that the world didn't revolve around me and that being in denial changes nothing. My dad didn't see that. Because things fell apart, he ended it the only way he could think to."

A long, uncomfortable silence ensued. The boy continued cooking while the girl continued brooding. So many things were on her mind. What if she hadn't been afraid and had gone with Kotemon and Koemon? Would that slave boy and his family be living safely hidden in Odaiba or Mt. Fuji or some other Resistance base? Would he be detailing the plans of the Kaiser's base to the commanding officer in readiness for a full-scale attack? Would the Kaiser fall tomorrow? Perhaps, but only if she hadn't been afraid.

"Cellblock 60?" Osamu asked suddenly. "What's so special about the highest level?"

"It's where everyone goes when they can't handle it anymore. Most of the people here are schizophrenics or something. I think everyone's afraid I'll end up like them." She pulled on Kouji's jacket over the new clothes. "You said his name was Kouji Minamoto, right?"

"Yes."

"A friend of mine said he was the Kaiser's brother. And the Kaiser called him ototo-chan in front of that Digimon last night."

"Kouichi and Kouji. Light-one and Light-two. Twins."

"And the Kaiser, Kouichi, killed his own family?"

"Yes."

"How could anyone be so heartless?"

Osamu turned to look at her, his fire-blue eyes staring into her soul. "Tell me how Fate can be so cruel as to twist a kind-hearted child into a murderer and how she can be so cruel as to kill everyone a little boy loved in order to drive him into madness. Then I can tell you how a boy can kill his own family."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right." He gave her a bowl of whatever had been in the packet. "Cinnamon raisin instant oatmeal from the United States Resistance. Apparently, they swear by this stuff to cure all the ills of the world."

"Which team?"

"I don't know. Why? Do you have friends in any particular team?"

"No. Each Resistance team has a calling card in either equipment or food—something that someone else doesn't have or something used in each box of supplies. This oatmeal might be the calling card of one of those teams."

"Actually, I made that up. I was hoping it would help you feel better."

"It didn't work. But thanks anyway." She sat down and began to eat the oatmeal mush and raisins. It was warm and sweet in her mouth, but it felt so wrong somehow to taste sweetness instead of the bitter pain that came with death. Was that why the handful of funerals she'd been to—mainly for Resistance officers she hadn't known—had food served to all the mourners? Was another person's cooking really the cure to the ills of the world?

"Are you okay?" Osamu checked.

"No." It was soft, not biting, but still he grimaced.

"Stupid question. Sorry."

"It's all right." It was just then that she remembered her manners and offered her half-eaten breakfast to him. "Are you hungry? Do you want some?"

"No, it's okay. I don't need to eat." She stared at him oddly. "It's a long story." He stood up to leave. "Anyway, I've got to go. They'll be waiting for me at base."

"How are you going to get out of here?" she asked. "The walls are padded but thick, and that glass is unbreakable."

"Don't worry about me. I'm going to leave the same way I got in. Soon, though, I hope I can take passengers." Then, right before her eyes, he became transparent and passed through the glass, disappearing. She held her hand against the window and then pressed her tear-smudged face against the cold glass. It was just another thing to mourn.

Takamoto survived Takuya's rage, if only for the almost divine intervention of Junpei, who held his friend back from killing the young man. And young Kanbara was certainly not happy about it.

He swore loudly at everything he encountered and kicked boxes of supplies while sending all fellow Resistance fighters running. None of them wanted to learn the hard way what it was like to feel the angry flames of his Digimon forms' attacks.

He sat down in the mess hall with an angry grunt. Kage, who'd taken refuge there sometime after Osamu left, looked up.

"Coffee?" he guessed. There was an affirmative grunt. "It's going to give you an ulcer." Takuya grunted again, this time with more annoyance. "All right. Don't say I didn't warn you." He poured his second-in-command a cup of scalding coffee made from burnt grounds. Takuya gulped it down quickly, barely noticing the heat and flavor. He slammed the cup down and Kage refilled it. "Did you leave enough of Takamoto to gut and fling on the Kaiser?"

Takuya slammed down his cup again, splashing the liquid onto the wood table. "Yeah, he's alive. You can find him staggering to his quarters. About the only thing Junpei couldn't keep me from crushing was the guy's manhood." Kage flinched visibly, promising himself not to anger the Warrior of Fire. "So where's the newbie?"

"Osamu? He's at the Kaiser's base, trying to see how much he can transport in and out."

"Kouji?" Takuya asked, anticipation replacing his mask of anger.

Kage shook his head. "He tried last night with no luck. He's not sure when he'll be able to get him out."

"Oh." He picked up his cup again and drank the bitter coffee, making a face as it went down. "Ugh!"

"Told you. I don't know why the only coffee we get from donations is that bad."

"Maybe they expect us to use it as a weapon," Takuya suggested, dumping in three packets of sugar. "And speaking of weapons, how's yours coming along?"

"Decently, but nothing spectacular. Himi's is taking the longest."

"Why?"

"You'll see when they're done."

Takuya stared into the depths of his coffee. Granules of sugar spiraled toward the center of the cup. On a whim, he took a small cup of creamer and slowly poured it in, watching the dark, clear brown gradually become a milky almost beige color.

"I think that's less toxic now," Kage pointed out as Takuya continued to stare.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I was thinking."

"About what?"

"About Kouji. I feel so bad for him—not pity though. I think pity is more from a distant view."

"Sympathetic then?"

"Not even that. I feel like I've just gone through the same thing he did. It's just like when we were all still a team, only then I could do something about it." He momentarily held his head in his hands before looking back up at Kage. "When I saw him last night, Kage, I thought he looked exactly the same as he had when he die—when we last saw him. But as I tried to sleep, little details came back to me, things I didn't notice then." He held his arms. "His arms were so thin. Yeah, they were a little more toned than I remember, but they were small under his sleeves. His shirt was torn and bloody—there was a spot on his stomach that had to be a fresh wound. His hair was short—and all this time, I thought he had a lot of pride in his long ponytail. He was a completely different person. And his eyes…"

"What about them?"

"They were broken and hollow. His spirit was so badly broken there that I don't think anything could fix it." He made eye contact with his leader and spoke in a stern yet emotional voice. "He was dead, Kage. I could see it in his eyes. He was dead."

Kage sighed and lowered his gaze. "Then Tai's had her revenge."

"Tai? Isn't that your sister's nickname?" Kage nodded. "What does she have to do with any of this?"

Kage reached into a hidden compartment and pulled out a small bottle of sake. Takuya watched in confusion as he poured a small amount into the coffee-sugar-cream concoction and another small amount into a cup of coffee for himself. "I save this for the senior members and for bribes when I need to. But this is a good enough reason to drink underage."

"I don't understand."

"Takuya, there's a long history between your friend and my sister, even though they've never met." He downed some of his sake-coffee brew. "And none of it's good."

Takuya warily looked at his sake cocktail before drinking a mouthful. He felt a little lightheaded as the caffeine, sugar, and alcohol passed through his bloodstream, but still he urged, "Go on." He knew he might as well follow this bad news with his first hangover. Kage was of like mind and gulped more of his own coffee.

"Well, Takuya, it has to do with my father's assassination…"

Yutaka Himi and his unofficial partner, Gabumon, stood outside Dr. Akagami's office in a small town hospital near the Underground Railroad. This had to be the craziest thing they'd ever done, Yutaka figured as he readied his laser pistol on the stun setting. He'd checked the patients earlier and found quite a few with high fevers and unexplained bedsores and bruises. With Takamoto's full report on his bacterium's capabilities, Himi had come to the terrifying conclusion that the suspicious doctor was using his patients as test subject for a new strain of this genetically modified bacterium.

"Himi-san, are you ready?" Gabumon whispered. He nodded and kicked in the door, his gun pointed straight ahead while Gabumon prepared to unleash his Petit Fire.

Akagami wasn't in, so they relaxed somewhat as they searched the office. If anyone could emit the absolute essence of guiltlessness, it was Akagami. Everything he owned was innocent, from the empty coffee cup on his desk to the fish tank beside the window.

"Nothing particularly sinister here," Himi commented. "The most villainous thing he's done is forget to water his potted plants. Even his fish are well-fed."

"Let's look somewhere else then," Gabumon decided.

Himi looked around for anything suspicious when suddenly Akagami leapt out of a cabinet at his back. He tried to wrestle the older man off of his back, but it was to no avail, and Gabumon couldn't attack for fear of hurting his partner. Akagami then plunged a syringe into Himi's neck. The Resistance fighter threw him to the ground and clutched the wound as it began to bleed. But something was seriously wrong. Even though only a trickle of blood left the wound to his carotid artery in his neck, he was starting to feel dizzy and weak. He swayed and staggered drunkenly over to the door as his vision swam.

The bacterium, he realized with dread. "Gabumon, quick, stop him!"

Akagami leapt at him, injecting his back while Gabumon attacked. A shout of "Petit Fire!" was all the warning Akagami got before blue flames utterly consumed him. Himi, meanwhile, forced himself to walk to a passing nurse.

"I need penicillin—any antibiotic," he begged, heaving up his stomach contents on the floor in front of her.

"In a minute, sir. First, we need you to fill out some paperwork."

"There's no time."

"Sir, it's the procedure—"

"Screw procedure. I'm dying, and I will if I don't get any help." He grabbed her arms weakly. "I've been poisoned with a deadly bacterium. I need help now." His valor could only keep him standing for so long. Finally, his body gave into fever, and he collapsed and passed out in his own vomit. The nurse called for help as she tried to wake him, and soon Dr. Yamamoto appeared.

"Leave this one to me," he advised. "In the meantime, get yourself washed. I'll have you in quarantine in the ICU with me and this patient until we learn how this spreads." Everyone else kept away as he hefted Himi onto a gurney and exiled them both in the intensive care unit.

It wasn't much longer later when nearly ten-year-old Tomoki Himi barged in on the half-drunken Kage and Takuya. Feeling that it was only right, he saluted before speaking.

"Kage, I need to head into town for a few days. My brother's in the hospital."

The two leaders sobered immediately at this news. Yutaka Himi had brought the Chosen to the first commander, Kae Watanabe, and was therefore partially responsible for their success rate in battle and camaraderie.

"What's wrong with him?" Takuya questioned, even in his drunken state seeing the extreme distress in his adopted little brother.

"Takamoto's bacterium," Tomoki replied. "Please, I want to be there in case…" He didn't finish his thought, but he didn't need to. Kage and Takuya knew already what he didn't want to say.

"You'll go with Takamoto," Kage ordered. "It's about time he sees what he did." Tomoki nodded breathlessly and ran to take Takamoto with him to the hospital. The tall redhead wasn't at all happy with having to face the penalties of his actions in this way, but he agreed to drive the boy. He really had no choice in the matter. Kage had given the order, and Miyagami was glaring at him emotionlessly. Takamoto swallowed hard. It very easily could have been his best friend dying, not just the simple acquaintance.

As he drove the team's green SUV, he snuck a glance at Tomoki. The boy had seen one of his friends killed and had only just learned that he was alive on the outside and dead inside. He had seen that broken friend's family murdered and their bodies ravaged. Now he was about to lose his own family. The look on his face was haunted but passively calm at the same time, as though he'd accepted his brother's possible fate. That wasn't right for a ten-year-old boy.

As he turned the corner, Takamoto recalled when he'd been a young boy, younger than Tomoki. He'd been convinced that there were evil demons, monsters, under his bed until he'd looked underneath to see that the eyes underneath were his own. A mirror showed his reflection in the dark, and it had been a calming reassurance that the monsters didn't exist. But they did. It was only now that he realized that he was the monster from his nightmares. The mirrors under the bed still held his reflection. All of the demons he'd feared wore his face. And all he could do was hope that some miracle would happen. He could not hope for forgiveness—that was far beyond his reach—but he could hope that Yutaka wouldn't be claimed as retribution.

Okay, I know there's some 24 influence in there with the bacterium, but it was in the original. Whatever inspired that inspired this too. 24 just added some flavor since I watched the season finale before writing this. The idea of Takuya and Kage getting drunk as they discuss the connection between Taiyou and Kouji is partially inspired by The Pretender, where Parker often got drunk—especially when talking to Jarod about something particularly heartbreaking—or when Broots asked her for something that "burns" when he'd found out some disturbing information he had to share. The other half of the inspiration came from Amon of Witch Hunter Robin, who's almost always seen in the bar at Harry's. Hopefully the rest of my author's notes can remain relatively short as random ideas pop out of my head left and right.

Chapter Three: "Allay Pain"
It hurts to remember the past, and it hurts even more to face the future. The world is falling apart, and one person remembers why. The truth can set you free, or it can just tether your wings even further.