Hikari started as her phone buzzed and cautiously pulled it out of her pocket. One didn't know what to expect in a situation such as hers—seated in the backseat of a car with several solemn looking men in black suits as her only company. Taichi was no longer answering his phone, despite multiple attempts to reach him, and the latest developments being broadcast on the small screen at the front of the car did nothing to appease her anxiety. She hoped it was Taichi; she got more than she was hoping for.

'Hey, where are you? Is everything okay?'

Takeru-kun. She blinked away tears she didn't know she had been holding back.

'I'm fine. I'm being taken somewhere I don't know, but it doesn't seem like they mean any harm. My digivice has been responding to something. What about you?'

The response was immediate. He must have been waiting. 'I'm glad you're okay. Us too. I'm with nii-san, and our digivices are acting up too. Whatever you were feeling before was right.'

"Is everything okay?" One of the men who wasn't driving asked, noticing her type away at her phone.

She nodded, grateful that they were trying to express concern. "Yes, everything is fine. One of my friends just contacted me."

He glanced at her phone suspiciously. "Is it another one of the chosen children?"

"Yes."

At this, he seemed satiated. "That's fine, then."

'I was hoping it was wrong. These people seem to know about us and our involvement with the Digital World. I wonder where we're going…' She sent the message she had been typing, and sure enough, the reply came straight away.

'Me too. But it'll be okay. I hope we're headed to the same place as you.'

Takeru was right, she thought—all of the chosen children needed to be together at a time like this. She was a bit too caught up in the seriousness of the moment to read between the lines of his message and realize that he wanted specifically to be beside her. It registered somewhere in the back of her mind, where she filed it for later perusal because there were other, more pressing issues at the present.

The car screeched to a halt, and it was only then that she could ascertain where they were—Haneda airport. It was difficult making out the shape of the terminals in the darkness, as almost all of the lights were out, except for the red emergency lighting that dotted the landing strip. Haneda was where Taichi had last stated he was headed, and she felt instantly relieved. There was a second reason she felt relieved, a familiar presence she knew and loved. Her digivice and her heart both told her the same thing, and she said it as she alighted from the car.

"Tailmon!"

"Hikari!"

The feline Digimon sprang from the darkness into her waiting arms. Three years in between, and everything still felt the same.

"Are you alright?" Hikari checked her partner carefully, ensuring that her Holy Ring was still in place. "What's going on?"

Tailmon cocked her head to the side. "I'm alright. As for what's going on, I'm not too sure. When we came to, we were in this world."

"We?"

"Hikari-chan!"

Takeru came running up to her, Patamon in his arms. His eyes had a steely, protective glint to them. She hadn't seen that look in his eyes for a while. Yamato followed closely behind.

"Takeru-kun! Patamon!" she breathed in relief. "You're here too!"

But his smile was as charming as ever. "Guess we ended up seeing each other today anyways."

"You ok, Hikari-chan?" Yamato, this time. Gabumon was at his heels.

"Yamato-san, Gabumon! Yes!" She was glad to see her surrogate brother.

Yamato returned a grin. "Is Taichi with you?"

Her heart chilled. "No, I was on the phone with him a while ago, but I haven't been able to get through to him since."

"I see." Yamato feigned indifference in an effort to prevent her from worrying further.

"It's Taichi-san. He'll be okay. I'm sure Agumon is with him." Takeru was right by her side; she could feel his arm pressing against hers.

Tailmon and Patamon nodded vigorously in agreement, and she bit her lip, forcing herself to accept it.

"Yeah." She fingered her digivice thoughtfully and turned to Takeru. Now there was even less space between them. She was practically leaning into his chest, but neither of them seemed to mind—or notice, for that matter. "What's happening here?"

"The rest of us are here too," he supplied. "None of us know what's going on, but our partner Digimon are all here too. Everyone's waiting over there."

She briefly gave thanks to the suited men and followed the brothers back to the rest of the group. They were in a tight semicircle by a group of buildings that concealed a bigger landing area. Sora stood beside Biyomon, who was hovering in the air with Tentomon, trying to get a sense of what was happening beyond the cluster of buildings that blocked their line of sight. Palmon and Gomamon sat near Koushirou, who was typing madly away at his laptop. He closed it when he noticed the three approaching.

"Hikari-chan, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Sora was the first one to speak, coming over to them with motherly worry.

"Sora-san! I'm okay. More than that, how are you all?" Hikari replied, eyes anxiously roaming the group. She faltered a bit when she did not find her brother, as expected, but kept her head sternly high. "What happened to Kuwagamon?"

"Probably further that way. They wouldn't let us past these buildings until everyone got here," Koushirou spoke up. "Everyone who was willing or able to come, that is."

Per his comment, Mimi and Jou were both unaccounted for.

"Mimi, where are you?" Palmon mumured.

Gomamon was silent, but his eyes were fixed on the far end of the tarmac, as if another car would show up any moment.

Hikari knelt down to them. "It'll be okay, you two. They'll come as soon as they can."

One of the suited men came running, waving an arm as if to signal something.

Koushirou squinted. "Okay! He says okay!"

Yamato brought his Digivice up from where it usually sat hidden on his belt. "Let's go."

Crashes, yells, and plumes of dust and smoke informed them that there was indeed some sort of battle going on. As they ran past the buildings toward the strip, Hikari turned ashen, hearing a familiar voice in the distance.

"Oniichan!" She cried. "He's there!"

There was a large boom, and the ground undulated, throwing them off their feet. Takeru's arms came around her, shielding her briefly from the fall. She was aware of him, in the dust and wind and rubble. His warmth. The way he smelled, too—so different from the people she was used to embracing: her mother, her father, her brother. In some corner of her mind, it clicked that Takeru wasn't her family. Which would have been an odd thought, sparing the fact that they had grown up intimately together, practically siblings. But the truth was that he was a boy, entirely separate, with different flesh, blood, genes. His space in her life as of late seemed to mimic her brother's, but he didn't smell like a brother. His embrace didn't feel like a brother's.

She was vaguely aware of this, but there was no time to be fully cognizant. Speaking of brothers, her main thought was getting to her own brother as quickly as humanly possible, and she was back on her feet in the next moment, faster than the rest of them.

The others also regained their bearings and continued on.

It was only one Kuwagamon. Why was there so much chaos?

The answer became clear to them as they cleared the row of buildings. Not one, but three Kuwagamon, crackling with distortions, surrounded a fallen Greymon. Taichi stood nearby, dirtied and tired, desperation a dark cloud around him.

"Greymon!" Taichi yelled.

"Taichi!" Yamato echoed.

Hikari watched as her brother turned to them, and all of the fear she had been feeling vanished. She was not lost. Even when he wasn't beside her. She would be there for him this time, strong and reliable, just as he had been for her. She fixed a courageous beam on her face for him to see.

"Everyone…" he said.

She noted by the way his expression changed when he saw her that he was not happy she was there. She was glad she was, though.

"Sorry for making you wait." Yamato grinned.

A few minutes later and they were running around the landing strip, trying to keep the three infected Digimon at bay. Greymon and Garurumon were handling the first, but there were still two more to be dealt with. Takeru wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but these seemed stronger and had more ill-intent than the Kuwagamon they had encountered during their first time in the Digital World. He glanced sidelong at Hikari, but her expression was fixed, almost serene in its focus.

"This is bad—they've split up," Sora cried, watching as the two they had been chasing scattered in separate directions.

"Let's do the same!" Koushirou suggested quickly.

Even in the heat of battle, when they didn't have enough time to spare each other a few words of discussion, it only seemed natural that they function as a pair. It was almost immediate; Sora and Koushirou gave each other quick nods before beginning to pursue the Kuwagamon that had flown to the west, but Hikari and Takeru just ran off to the east without so much as looking at each other. They would be together. That was obvious. Given their partner Digimon's characteristics and fighting styles—the two Holy Digimon—it made sense, but it was much more than that. They moved almost as one, propelled by the same motives and beliefs, and their Digimon mirrored them.

The Kuwagamon, sensing their pursuit, flew upwards to avoid them.

"We can't let them get away," Takeru declared.

"Let's stop them here!" Hikari completed.

"Got it, Takeru!"

"Leave it to us!"

Patamon and Tailmon leapt into the air.

They watched together from the ground as Patamon digivolved into Angemon and Tailmon leapt up onto his shoulder. The two Digimon seemed to work in perfect harmony, landing attacks that emitted a golden halo of holy energy one after the other. Angemon would pause to catch Tailmon every time she finished an attack, and Takeru briefly remembered something Patamon had said to Daisuke several years ago.

What was it again? He recalled silently, keeping his eyes fixed on the fight above. It was when Hikari became trapped after a Guardromon destroyed the portal they had been using to travel to and from the Digital World. He had immediately leapt back in to find her, and Daisuke had followed, leading up to an instance in which Patamon was able to digivolve normally rather than having to armor digivolve. Daisuke's reaction had been comical, and Patamon had said something like…

"Angemon and Angewomon! We're made for each other!"

That had sent Daisuke into fits of jealousy, demanding that Veemon, his partner, digivolve into UltraAngemon.

He smiled at the memory of three years ago. To think that they would be thrown back into the midst of things and that they would be able to battle beside their partners so smoothly. And to think that the girl with the whistle would still be right next to him after all these years.

"What is it?" she could tell he was a bit distracted.

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Just feels a little nostalgic, that's all."

He made a mental note to contact Daisuke and the rest of the second generation chosen. Come to think of it, it was odd that none of them had shown up. Though most of them attended the same school, they had grown slightly apart in the three years after their adventure together. They could only meet up every once in a while. Daisuke was supposedly studying abroad in the US for the year—or was he back already? Ken and Miyako kept themselves busy—Miyako was constantly at cram school studying for high school entrance exams, while Ken was frequently away doing some sort of research work, genius that he was. Iori had moved and now lived a little further away, so it was impossible to see him unless they specifically planned to meet up.

"Look," Hikari murmured.

Angemon and Tailmon landed synchronized punches as a finishing blow, and the Kuwagamon rapidly disintegrated into units of data. Hikari's eyes followed the data, and confusion registered in her face as she noticed a digital portal of sorts rapidly consuming it.

"It vanished…?"

"One more left," Takeru prompted her, wanting to keep her alert just in case there were more.

They turned to where Garurumon was tussling with the final Kuwagamon to see if they needed assistance, but the Kuwagamon had already been grabbed by a hulking arm that also vanished into a similar portal.

With no more enemies to be found, the chosen reunited with their Digimon and gathered closer to the entrance of the tarmac. The men in black had waited for them. They were now taking records of the battle and making official looking phone calls, both of which were rather unsettling.

"Hikari, I thought I told you not to come," Taichi reprimanded with a pained expression.

"Oniichan," she chided in return. "I got worried when you hung up on me. Besides, I needed to be here. Tailmon is my partner."

Watching this exchange, Takeru smiled, then turned as his brother asked, "Who are these men who brought us here, anyway?"

None of them had a clear answer. Koushirou spouted some facts that he had gathered regarding the fact that they were likely government officials, but nothing else seemed to make sense. They were all regarding the men in suspicion when a piercing voice came to them from the entrance.

"Everyoneee! Palmon!"

"Mimi!"

The plant-like Digimon sprung up from the ground and made its way to the bubbly young lady who was waving at them.

"Mimi-san!" Hikari and Takeru cried. They had last seen her during their visit to the US a few years back.

She had grown taller, and her hair was dyed a trendy pinkish brown color, but she was definitely the same Mimi.

"Hey~~ Ya miss me?" she crowed with a wink.

Digiegg 3: Headcanon, poetry

Takeru's theme song from Adventure 02, Focus, is actually an emotional poem he wrote when he first realized his budding feelings for Hikari. He still continues to write angsty, romantic poetry about her. He started writing them on his laptop when his mother discovered his secret notebook during his first year of middle school.