content warnings: violence beyond canon-typical levels. if that's a worry, please check the notes at the very bottom of the chapter for specifics!
also: survivor's guilt, cripplingly low self-esteem, trauma, death-seeking tendencies. like Izumi said last chapter, she's doing alright.


Shutumon has no trouble identifying the island Ranamon attacked. It sits a bare minute's flight from a hole in the ocean, an unfathomable kilometers-wide void down which water pours in thundering torrents. Across the beach nearest that dead zone, the remnants of a fight still lie uncleared. Stretches of the shoreline sit uneven where attacks gouged them out. Left across the ground at the edge of a water-filled crater is a massive tentacle, shriveled and baking on the grit and sand beneath the late morning sun.

A path winds from the beach through a cluster of tide pools to a village slightly farther inland, though Shutumon doesn't get that far before a seadramon hails her from the water.

"Just passing through?" Seadramon rasps in lieu of a greeting once she's flown low enough, in a tone that promises consequences for answers that aren't yes.

The threat would put Izumi on the back foot, but Shutumon isn't Izumi in any way except the one that matters. "Are you the one who drove off the Warrior of Water?" she asks, unfazed despite the fact that a seadramon can wipe the floor with her. The serpent narrows their eyes. They tilt their head up, possibly to see her better but more likely to preemptively aim for a mouth-launched attack. "I'm here with a message if you are. And – help, if you'll have me."

Seadramon hums and, after a pause, falls slightly back into the water. "That's hard to say no to. Who are you, then? I'm Seadramon, protector of this island and its digimon."

"Shutumon," she replies. "I'm from the mainland."

Since most people don't go out of their way to help strangers in completely separate parts of the world, that requires some further explanation. Seadramon believes the prepared story she spins about fleeing a ruined homeland and wanting to help others escape the same fate. They seem touched by it, even, to the point that their wariness has all but evaporated by the time she finishes.

"How did you hear about us?" they ask.

When she lets herself, Shutumon feels more strongly than Fairimon and more strongly than Izumi, but she's better at squirreling those pesky emotions away if she needs to. Some memories are easier for her. "The one Cherubimon sent for us. He was talking about it as he left," she says casually. Shutumon, after all, is not the one who felt like she was being gutted when she saw Duskmon using Kouji's Digivice, or the one who wakes up in the middle of the night frozen to stillness and trying not to find eyes in the dark. "Cherubimon wants him to finish what Ranamon started here."

"Is he strong?"

She laughs.

"Ah." Seadramon blinks and doesn't say anything for a moment. Their expression doesn't change, though Shutumon imagines that's more from of a lack of appropriate physiology than a lack of emotion. "More than Calamaramon?"

"There's no comparison."

"I barely fought her off. She killed Ikakkumon and scanned our neighbors' island. Then she chased the gomamon here. If Ikakkumon and the gomamon hadn't already injured her, I wouldn't have won."

"I'm sorry," says Shutumon.

"What, for Ikakkumon? Don't be. Fighting her is – was the only useful thing it ever did."

Shutumon raises an eyebrow. "That was brave of it. If that's what happened, though, then the two of us won't be enough to stop Duskmon. You'd be safer leaving and letting him have the island."

Seadramon cocks their head. "Did you come to tell me that?"

Shutumon expected the question before she ever left the Wind Terminal, as soon as she pictured the conversation where the anonymous residents of the island heard a stranger tell them to abandon their home on nothing but her word, and yet she still hesitates when she hears it for real. There are few right answers.

"Do you know," she asks finally, "how much of the digital world Cherubimon has scanned by now? I don't know the percent, but I passed through the Wind Terminal on the way here and talked to some of the people there. Their settlement's grown to four times its size over the past few months. There are refugees arriving every day from everywhere the trailmon go. No one is stopping the Warriors," she says, and it comes out more heated in Shutumon's voice than it would even in Izumi's. Shutumon has too high of an opinion of herself to care much for regret or resentment or self-loathing, but she feels her anger with the keenness and clarity of someone who believes her discontent on its own is enough to leave an impact on the world. Izumi cannot match it. "At this rate, there won't be anywhere in this world left to run to."

"I didn't know it was that bad," says Seadramon. "I thought it was only in the Archipelago."

Shutumon shakes her head. "Flame, Forest, and Hill have taken the worst of it, but they've been everywhere." She takes a breath. "I don't think you should stay. Duskmon is strong. We won't win." Though... "But running won't do anything except put it off if no one else stops him. This is your home. It's up to you how much you can afford to gamble with. I'll try to help with whatever decision you make."

The sea serpent takes her into the village after that, where the digimon answer Seadramon's summons. Up close, it's clear that the settlement is overcrowded. Betamon and shakomon gather around them, and gomamon filter in at the back.

When Seadramon explains the situation, the villagers near-unanimously choose to stay. Only Shutumon's total lack of surprise lets her hold back a sigh. They don't know what they're dealing with.

But they ask her, and so she tells them. Of how the only attacks she's seen land against him were the ones he chose to let through. Of how there were five in her group, each of the others stronger than her, and Duskmon stood still and took their signature attacks head-on and unguarded and then asked them if that was all. (That moment, and the one after, are memories Izumi has nightmares of, but Shutumon's utterly undeserved composure has to be good for something. She speaks of the encounter as simply as she would of the weather. It's in the past, and she's learned her lessons from it.)

She cannot stress enough how much they will not win this fight. Her group went against him because they didn't understand, not really, what they were facing, and for that one mistake Duskmon destroyed them.

"Is he worse than Calamaramon?" a gomamon calls out.

Shutumon has to take a moment before she realizes that to a gomamon, every digimon at or above Calamaramon's level might seem equally insurmountable. "Much worse. The five of us could fend off Calamaramon."

That at least makes an impression on the gomamon. It's a start.

"The five of you," Seadramon repeats overhead. "Where are your friends?"

"Gone," she bites out, and lets them draw what conclusions they will.

The other Warriors deserve better than to have her thinking of them.

Seadramon asks if Duskmon can swim or breathe underwater, and if she knows how he intends to reach the island. By boat seems most likely to her, although she stumbles over that reply – some part of her finds it absurd that Duskmon rides trailmon and might need a vehicle to cross water instead of just magically appearing wherever he wants to like some horror film monster. It's the same part that listened to him arguing with Wanyamon and thought, Oh. He acts like a person.

Seadramon proposes smashing the boat and stranding him in the ocean, which is not... the worst plan she's heard. But after they get him into the water they still need either a way to damage him or to keep him under. They have neither. Seadramon can't physically hold him without putting themselves at risk, and trying to freeze him would both leave them in reach of his ranged abilities and probably not slow him for long anyway.

It only takes half an hour for Shutumon's unrelenting pessimism to sway the villagers. It's determined that Seadramon will remain, but the others will evacuate to a nearby settlement. If they win, Seadramon will find them and let them know that it's safe to return. If not...

"You're still staying?" Seadramon asks her once the crowd has dispersed to gather their possessions.

"I said I would follow your lead."

Seadramon nods slowly. "I can't lose to an enemy before I've so much as seen him."

"Agnimon said that too. He couldn't believe how strong Duskmon was even after we'd fought him once. It didn't seem fair." She crosses her arms as Seadramon turns away from watching the villagers to peer down at her instead. "He forced our last fight. But none of us stopped him, either."

She thinks it should go the other way around, but since Kouji died she's actually come to sympathize more with Takuya's position. Duskmon didn't attack them on the Continent for any reason like... like wanting to help his friends, or wanting to stop bullies, or any of the other causes you're supposed to fight for. He did it because he felt like it and someone told him to. With a motive that shallow, it wasn't right that he could win.

If she had the chance to go back and do it over there's only one thing she would change, and it wouldn't be the part where she followed Takuya into the fray because she was too much of a coward to let a friend risk his life alone. She would do that again just for spite. Takuya, after all, had a point, and it was a good one, and any decent reality should have bent over backwards to make it come true.

Seadramon says, "You brought us a warning. You've done that much already. If you think it's such a bad idea to face this Duskmon, you shouldn't have to feel pressured to stay."

"I didn't leave Agnimon either," she replies.

Seadramon doesn't ask again. The villagers finish their preparations by the end of the second hour, and they invite Shutumon to join them for a late lunch before they head out. Afterwards, Seadramon leaves her on her own in order to escort them. This seems like an unwarranted degree of trust, but then again, she does prove them right by not even considering abusing it.

They return late in the afternoon, and she lands to greet them at the shore. "All quiet."

"How did you know he'd wait until after sunset?" Seadramon asks.

Wanyamon, Shutumon thinks. She doesn't know if Duskmon will bring Wanyamon with him because he clearly has trouble letting the smaller digimon more than an arm's length away or if he'll leave him behind because he just as clearly would commit murder to keep Wanyamon out of the slightest hint of danger. She thinks the latter's more likely, but in either case he's unlikely to want to draw the confrontation out. That means not attacking under the handicap that daylight apparently is to him.

If not for Wanyamon, though, she wouldn't have been able to say for sure even if she somehow knew about his light blindness. He seems confident enough in his own ability that he might have attacked even at a time when he can't see well. (Despite how Wanyamon phrased it, Shutumon doesn't believe that he can't see at all under the sun. He had no trouble meeting her gaze while he was looking at her.)

When she absolutely doesn't say anything of that, it's not only because she feels ugly enough already using a child's trust against someone he loves. "I don't think he likes daylight," she hedges, with no follow-up explanation as to where the information comes from. But Seadramon just gives a thoughtful rumble and accepts it.

Abruptly enough that she hopes it seems unrelated, she adds, "He might have someone with him. Not a fighter, baby level. If he's there, we can't attack him."

Seadramon blinks. "Why not?"

Past the non-verbal infancy stage, digimon stop treating their children like humans do. Shutumon, a digimon who likewise cannot imagine children as anything other than small adults, is not really equipped to argue against it, but Izumi before she evolved made sure to come up with logical reasons to consider Wanyamon a bystander. "If something happens to him, if Duskmon thinks something might happen to him, he'll be even worse to deal with. It isn't worth it. Wanyamon won't do damage on his own, so it's alright to ignore him."

She hasn't been able to work out Duskmon's relation to him. At first she didn't think it could be anything good, but she doesn't know that it's possible to fake every bit of the patience the Warrior showed for him.

What she has the hardest time reconciling is the way Duskmon interacted with him physically: he never stopped Wanyamon from moving away despite how uncomfortable the distance left him, and when he wanted Wanyamon back from Shutumon he reached out and waited. She's not certain what he would have done if Wanyamon chose in the end not to go with him, but the fact that she's even not certain throws her off. She should be sure that he would have killed her to take him back whether or not it would have hurt the smaller digimon, but she's... not. Even in the moment, she wasn't.

Wanyamon calls him nice. To Wanyamon he is. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Shutumon has people who would call her the same. Duskmon in battle is an unstoppable monster drunk on his own power willing to cut down his ally for the crime of losing a five-on-one fight, Duskmon out of battle is a digimon who treats a child like a child and starts conversations with people he's tried to kill, and there's nothing strange about the seeming dichotomy. She doesn't define any of her own Warriors by how they treat their opponents.

There's no reason Duskmon's motives for taking care of Wanyamon have to be nefarious, no reason he can't just like Wanyamon as much as Wanyamon likes him. Anyone can have someone who will miss them when they're gone.

Seadramon agrees not to target Wanyamon and offers dinner. Over it, Shutumon half-seriously raises the possibility of enlisting help, but they shoot it down. Ikakkumon and Seadramon have for a long time been two of the most competent fighters in the area. The few others at or above their level either can't be reasoned with or won't risk themselves in a conflict they hold no stake in. It's infuriating to listen to.

When they've finished and she's preparing to go they say, "Shutumon, wait." Shutumon, several meters in the air, pauses in a hover. "If something happens to me, are you going to keep fighting?"

Too late to pretend she didn't hear. She should have kept flying. "Do you think something will?"

"Who can say." Seadramon doesn't look at her, eyes fixed on the distance in the direction of the island that doesn't exist anymore. They shake their head and continue, "I don't know. Maybe not. But if it does, do you have a plan for what you'll do?"

"No," she says. "I'll let you know when I see him." She bursts upwards before Seadramon can call her back.

After the devastation Calamaramon wrought, Duskmon can only arrive from one direction anymore. Even with the moons dark, she doesn't worry about missing him – Shutumon and Fairimon can see as far at night as they can during the day, Shutumon naturally and Fairimon with the visor's help. Shutumon doesn't grow bored as easily as Izumi or Fairimon do, either, at least not as long as she's in the air, so she's not concerned about zoning out.

The hours don't pass quickly, but they pass. Midnight's long since come and gone by the time the speck of shadow crests the curve of the horizon, too far away for her to tell if Wanyamon's with him. She hesitates, considering whether to move close enough to confirm Wanyamon's presence first, but there's no real reason to. It won't change how the plan proceeds.

(That thought is entirely Shutumon's. Izumi's the best of any of the human Warriors at managing her Spirits, but even she can slip.)

She circles back to the island, lands, and calls for Seadramon, who rears out of the water as the shout fades. "Straight ahead," she tells them, flicking her head in Duskmon's direction.

For a moment she thinks Seadramon's about to speak, but in the end they only sink into the ocean. Shutumon feels a pang of... something as she watches them disappear. They'll probably both die in this fight while Duskmon walks away unscathed. Shutumon's not leaving anything important behind, and there's nothing else she wanted to do before the end. Maybe Seadramon's the same. Maybe not. She wouldn't have asked anyway, but it would be too late now if she wanted to.

Then she launches herself into the air to wait again, this time for their signal.

She's not surprised when the plan hits a snag on the first step. She's too far away to hear and she can't see into the water to find Seadramon, but she can spot just fine Duskmon suddenly standing up in the boat, the glint of a sword extending, and the heavy spray of water when he sends an energy wave arcing into the ocean.

Then the back of the boat explodes into splinters around a thin pillar of water. "Nice one," Shutumon says, impressed at any hit anyone might land against Duskmon without his allowing it. She folds her wings and dives.

He has Wanyamon with him, she notices when she's a little under two kilometers out. The smaller digimon's perched on his shoulder, tucked close against into his neck and nearly out of sight. She finds him by his tail. That's a problem, but it's not hers so much as it is Duskmon's.

The next break in the plan, however, is definitely her and Seadramon's concern: Duskmon steps out of the sinking boat and onto the waves, seemingly unused to the footing but still standing. On water.

He's an armored warrior in spikes and all black with crimson swords, creepy magic eyes, and daylight blindness. Outside of being too strong, his power set basically makes sense. His abilities that she's seen play into a theme. But where does walking on water fit into the suite? Was she supposed to expect him to have it just because it's the one skill that would bring their already negligible chances down to zero?

Instead of standing his ground, though, he takes off in the direction of the island. She flares her wings out of the dive and spins to follow him. He sprints nearly as fast as – nearly as fast as Garmmon, which doesn't surprise her because unlike water-walking it actually makes sense on him.

At his speed, he can reach the island in under four minutes. She wonders why he wants to, why he can't demolish them just as easily on the ocean. Maybe standing on water takes up too much concentration for him to fight at the same time? Or –

No, look at the bigger picture. There's a downside to his staying where he is. It doesn't matter what it is, only that it exists. As long as it does, they have a chance.

She outpaces him and dives again, moving to intercept. Red energy builds around her talons. Her ranged attack would do nothing to him, so melee's her one choice, though she can't help the trepidation that builds in her gut at the thought of moving into reach of his swords. The armor doesn't cover parts of his face, but she can't land that target. She'll have to aim for his other eyes, gross as it is.

As she nears, one of his shoulder eyes swivels towards her. Panic nearly overrides her at the mere sight, the urge to fly into the clouds and into safety winning out long enough that her path in the air wobbles – but if she backs off whenever he might kill her, she might as well not be here at all. Kouji never hesitated.

Duskmon skids to a stop, turns, and catches her clawed fingers on a blade. She snatches her hands back before he can cut through Gilgamesh Slicer and kicks him in the massive eye on his chest with both feet.

It does nothing. He doesn't stagger. The eye doesn't so much as blink. She uses the force to throw herself away from him, and he tsks and returns to running.

She launches herself at his back. The move actually catches him by surprise, and she manages to get a grip under his armpits and take them both into the air. He's heavier than she expected, but his weight still isn't much of a strain.

"Okay," he says. He doesn't struggle, and she has an awful, lurching flashback to this same scenario playing out with Agnimon in her place. This probably won't even hurt him. But there really is nothing else she can try that he hasn't proven immune to. Frustration tears at her – this isn't right. She shouldn't be this helpless. She's Shutumon.

"Can you fly high enough to reach outer space?" Duskmon asks idly, like he's not dozens of meters in the air and rising rapidly. "If you can't, this is useless."

"What is it going to take to kill you?"

Wanyamon's ears flatten, and he makes a noise from where he's sitting with his eyes closed and his face pressed into the side of Duskmon's neck. Duskmon says, "I wouldn't be here if I knew." She plans to drop him from the height of a skyscraper and he's relaxed enough to joke. "But gravity won't cut it."

She lets go. She watches him fall, her pulse loud in her ears and her hands shaking. It's not fear, not entirely. Just as much is anger.

A beam of light shoots out of the sea, the waves around the origin freezing into a spreading layer of ice. An energy wave from Duskmon's sword catches it and slices through it before it reaches him. The beam stops firing just before Duskmon's attack shatters the ice and carves into the water, and Shutumon hopes that means Seadramon dodged in time.

She follows him down. He lands, crouches to take the impact, and then, true to form, stands up as if it didn't happen and easily positions himself to catch her attack on his sword again. He meets her eyes and unsheathes his second blade.

She knows what's going to come an instant before it does, knows as he raises the other sword how she's going to end up when it slices down. He stills for a bare fraction of a second, almost as if giving her a chance to retreat, but there's no point to that anymore. She clenches her jaw and fully over-commits, palms bleeding onto the red metal as she presses in.

The sword falls, and Shutumon with it. She howls.

"Don't look," says Duskmon, muffled through the rising pitch of her own voice. For an instant she thinks he means it for her, and for that instant she hates him more than she thought possible.

Brine fills her mouth, her nose. She flails for the surface, breaks through to the wind she should have and has never had mastery over, draws breath, and screams. Under her weakened grasp the Spirit tries to slip away – it hurts, it hurts, it took the brunt of the injury for Izumi but she needs to let it go and she will not, she won't, it helped bring them to this point and she will not let it run away. Her Spirits' beauty and confidence and power are a trick that took her too long to see through. Their power could not protect Takuya or Kouji or even Izumi, their confidence is haughtiness without the strength to justify it, and their beauty – well, Duskmon's sword just cut right through it, along with her right arm and wing. They deserve all of this.

But the fight is about more than just them, isn't it? Seadramon can't face Duskmon alone, and Shutumon's even less useful now than she's ever been, seconds away from sinking permanently. Izumi shoves the Spirit and its pain back and wraps herself in Fairimon. Fairimon's wings can't carry her aloft while drenched, but at least all her limbs are firmly enough attached to let her tread water.

"Slide evolution," says Duskmon from above.

"No," she breathes.

But he's not evolving, only watching her. "You're Wind." He sounds... a little horrified, actually.

She can use that. And if he didn't recognize Shutumon... "The Warrior of Ice is here, too. Did you hit them? With the sword beam?"

"Barely," he says faintly. He reaches down. She balks, but he grabs her by the back of her collar like a cat and lifts her up. She punches him, and he tilts his head just enough to take the blow on his helmet. "Wings. You can fly?"

Oh. Maybe she does have a way to hurt him. She doesn't understand why, but he has a wound she can pick at. "Why do you care?"

"And Ice can breathe underwater?"

"They can't."

All of his eyes dart down. "They... okay." He turns and starts towards the island again. Fairimon grabs his arm to keep the jostling from choking her and curls her legs up enough to keep them from dragging in the water.

She tries at a Brezzo Petalo, but the streams of wind budge Duskmon as much as any other attack she's seen him take. They're both using Human Spirits, yet Izumi has Fairimon and Duskmon has himself. The only thing she's managed to move him with is words.

And... the final option. But Fairimon can't muster the necessary will to push it through her unwilling Spirits. Only Izumi can. Not to mention that she doesn't know if it'll even work against him when nothing else has, and though she hasn't done it yet she understands that once she uses it there will be no easy way back.

"You can't leave them," she snaps.

"They're moving."

"They can't hold their breath for long."

Duskmon huffs. "I can't swim, you can't fly – can you fly?"

"Drop me and see."

He doesn't. "I can't do anything if you drown. Or if I drown. You'd better trust them to manage."

"How are you running?"

"Cherubimon. Don't ask me how he did it."

"There's a time limit."

"Near enough."

"A step limit."

"Both of those," he says. "I thought it was only Kouji and Fire, but you're all stupid. Why – "

"You don't get to say his name."

He cocks his head. A sliver of amber by his throat as Wanyamon cracks an eye open. "Will you stop me?"

Shutumon would lunge. Izumi would... she's not sure what Izumi would do. She never really is, these days. But right now she's Fairimon, who only snarls, "Why is that always the question? Why does someone else have to do it for you?"

"Because you're the only one who cares if I upset you."

"Kouji would."

He stops in his tracks, staring at her if he's seeing her for the first time, and although the delay only lasts a second it's longer than anyone else has ever managed to slow him without his letting them. "...He's not here."

"I wonder how that happened."

"Look – "

A small voice cuts across him. "Neesan?"

The water gives way to sand under Duskmon's feet. He drops her as if scalded, and she takes a step back, swallows, and draws herself to her full height. As Shutumon she's taller than him, and Fairimon isn't that much shorter. "You shouldn't have brought him."

Duskmon raises a gauntlet to block Wanyamon's view. "I told you not to open your eyes."

"You were fighting neesan," Wanyamon whispers, so quiet Fairimon strains to catch the words. "Why would you... I don't – I don't understand. Someone got hurt! Duskmon, what did you do?"

"Nothing," Duskmon sighs. "She's fine."

In a flare of spite so strong she nearly chokes on it, Izumi sheds Fairimon. Shutumon shielded her from the worst of the injury, but enough broke through the Spirit's protective shell that blood pours down a deep cut on her arm as soon as Fairimon retreats. She tries to raise it, and the pain nearly sends to her knees. Her fingers are cold. "I'm fine," she says hoarsely. "Yeah, Duskmon. Repeat that."

He eyes the blood dripping to the sand with an unreadable expression. "You're scaring the kid." Wanyamon tries to peek around his hand, but Duskmon shifts to keep it in front of him.

"I – " The gall of him. She bites her lip. "Sorry, Wanyamon. But if you didn't want him to be here, then you shouldn't have brought him."

"All those babysitter options," Duskmon mutters.

"And if you didn't want me to be injured, then you shouldn't have hurt me. And if you didn't want Kouji to die, then you shouldn't have killed him! Whatever hang-ups you have for owning up to your own actions, get over them."

"Or what?"

The ground churns under her. She feels light-headed, disconnected, and she imagines she's so furious she can't think straight. "I've tried everything against you. I fought and it did nothing. I froze and it did nothing. I ran and it wasn't far enough. What do I have left?" She laughs, though it's a shaky thing when she can't get enough air. "Did you know, I'm really good at controlling my Spirits. My Beast Spirit listened to me perfectly the first time I used it. I don't know why anyone has trouble with theirs."

"And?" says Duskmon. "Are you done?"

"There's one thing I haven't tried on my own," she rasps. "Takuya believed in teamwork, and it... usually worked. It got us through a lot. Except a team is as strong as its weakest link, and sometimes the others makes stupid decisions and you just have to follow them in because your voice is too quiet to hear in arguments. So maybe cooperation can't always be the answer. Maybe sometimes you have to pick a leader and make everyone else shut up, even the ones who yell the loudest."

Her left hand closes around her Digivice. Static buzzes against her palm, her Spirits' attempt to force her to let go. She tightens her grip through the pain. "Shush," she murmurs. She's done it their way all this time even though it hasn't won her a single battle that she can remember, and where has that gotten her? Nowhere closer to the material world and home, who knows how far away from her friends, on a planet where Cherubimon's Warriors run unchecked.

"Double Spirit evolution: Furymon."


violence warning: Duskmon cuts off Shutumon's arm and wing. Izumi in her human form keeps the arm, but enough of the injury carries over to cause major blood loss.