an: last of the backlog


Furymon is a blight. Any digimon who perishes choking on their poison dies a human's death and never finds their way to the Village of Beginnings. Neither Duskmon nor Renamon met that fate last night, but not for lack of effort on Izumi's part.

There's something wrong with her, but she's too exhausted to think about it right now. Later, when her brain isn't a cloud and colors look right again and every swallow doesn't scrape like sandpaper through her parched throat.

"Hey."

She looks up. Duskmon's holding a Beast Spirit that has to be his own, but once she focuses on it he tosses it her way. She makes no move to catch it, and it lands on the ground at her side and topples over. It doesn't look like Velgrmon.

Touching it feels like meeting a friend she parted on bad terms and never made up with. She flinches but picks it up.

"Why?" she asks, staring at Duskmon. She turns the Beast Spirit of Wind over in her hands, tracing the new contours. Antlers and four three-toed hooves, though overall it's shaped more like a horse than a deer from what she saw of it before she looked away. It doesn't seem to have limbs to fly with. What has she done to it?

"I don't have a reason to keep it."

Cold fury grows in her and claws its way out as words: "Do you still think I can't hurt you?" Her voice is even, but she's so furious she can't breathe, all of the space behind her ribs taken up by that swelling anger. Her hold tightens on the Beast Spirit. It would be easy.

Then she breathes in, and the ice cracks. She swallows, shivering.

Who was that in her head? That person who only lives in the present, who only understands her own pain and what she can do to make the things hurting her stop? That can't have been Izumi. She lets go of the Spirit and clenches her right hand around her other fist.

She wants to go home.

She doesn't mean that thought any more than she means it when she's hungry enough to eat an entire cake or tired enough to sleep forever. Her parents' house these days is a dream and an ache. She clings to it when reality doesn't have what she needs.

Though her house didn't have what she needed, either.

The thing is, Izumi never once considered running away from home. Home wasn't the problem. She loves her parents. She loves their cats. Her room was her castle, the safest place in the world. Some days she felt like she'd never want to leave it, although, thinking back on it now, she doesn't understand how she thought she could be happy in a cage so small.

So the question, then, becomes this: why did a girl who had people she loved choose to board a train of an unknown route in a hidden station on the advice of an unidentifiable phone caller who knew her name before she gave it? Why does she regret what happened afterwards, but never that first step?

She felt this way at home too, sometimes. But not this strongly. Maybe she did imagine smashing her chair into a wall or holding a lighter to her desk or putting her hand up to the ceiling fan while it spun at the fastest setting, but temptation almost never crossed the line into desire. She didn't have to make an effort to stop herself from carrying them out.

She licks her lips. She's thirsty and hungry and tired and in pain. She's not thinking straight. Give it an hour and she'll be back to normal.

Whatever normal is.

Duskmon's talking again. She wishes he would stop. "If you want another fight," he rasps, "I don't mind, but I need the time to move Renamon first."

"You really don't hate me for hurting him?"

Duskmon's expression tightens. After a long pause, he sucks in an audible breath and says, "You gave a warning. Since I didn't take it, that's on me."

Izumi snorts. "What are you? I don't understand you at all."

"Do you imagine you make a lot of sense, either?"

"Don't say stuff like that." Stop reminding me that there's a person under the armor.

Silence again. The forest is too quiet, likely from the massacre Furymon and Velgrmon committed last night. She can't guess at how many creatures died to Furymon's poison or Velgrmon's final attack or all of the abilities they used that missed their targets and landed in the trees instead.

Seadramon probably abandoned the island once they saw Velgrmon take flight. It would have been the smart thing to do.

Duskmon doesn't look away from her, though he keeps half of his eyes fixed in the direction Renamon left in. Izumi turns the Spirit over a few more times, then collects it into her Digivice. The Human Spirit on the screen doesn't look like Fairimon anymore either, but she puts it back without examining it.

Duskmon says, "If you do anything like that to Renamon again, I'll kill you."

She grunts.

"Velgrmon thought it was the dust."

Does he think she'll explain her attacks to him? "Why are you talking in third person?"

"Because Velgrmon isn't me," he says, blinking. "Are you the same person when you evolve?"

He means it rhetorically. She cocks her head. "Yes?" As much as she's the same person whether she's wearing short sleeves or a jacket. Her Spirits are shells that change how she interacts with the world and with herself, but she's still her whether she calls herself Izumi or not.

Although Furymon was different. Three minds in one body, even if ultimately she was still in charge.

"Well, I'm not." He crosses his legs. There it is again, his ability to completely ignore the fact that the person he's talking to last tried to kill him. Someone sits like that only if they don't expect to get into an altercation anytime soon. "Velgrmon is the Beast Spirit. I'm the Human Spirit. I have as much control over Velgrmon as they do over Duskmon."

What? That's not – "Is that how it works for digimon?" But the rest of Cherubimon's Warriors with Beast Spirits don't turn into new people when they slide evolve.

Duskmon seems to be weighing the same thought. "...No, probably just me."

That can't be the case. Spirits don't act on their own.

A few other observations come together all at once, and she jolts. "How old are you?" she demands, sitting up straight.

"Why?"

She growls and gestures at herself. "I'm eleven. How old are you?"

"Ten."

The tension leaks out of her posture. She almost thought...

He adds, frowning at her, "Months."

"Che cavolo, you're how old? We arrived in the digital world ten months ago! When did you become the Warrior of Darkness?"

"The same length of time. Where are you going with this?"

She doesn't know either yet, but it can't be anywhere good. "Right out of your egg? Did you become a Warrior as soon as you hatched?"

He doesn't refute it, though she waits and hopes for him to.

Finally she breathes, "Oh. You don't have a personality."

He's barely a real person. He seems a little closer to it now, but back on the Continent of Darkness they must have lost to a shell, a living puppet, the Human Spirit with just enough of a mind controlling it to point it in the direction its lord wanted it to go. The realization leaves her sick to her stomach. Cherubimon fielded a blank slate, and it worked.

What did Cherubimon say earlier? I was sure I'd cut out your sense of honor. "And Cherubimon tampered with your Spirits."

He inclines his head. "That's what Velgrmon said. What did you mean, I don't have a personality?"

He doesn't sound upset or offended. A little annoyed, if anything. She told him Cherubimon snatched him from the cradle and slotted him into a shape of the angel's making and he nodded. Never mind what's wrong with him, how much is wrong with him? Kouji died to a monster Cherubimon made by taking a living person and turning it into a thing. Ophanimon was friends with someone who could do that.

She feels like she's going to throw up.

She's fought against enemy Warriors and seen the desolation that failure leaves behind. She's lost her friends to a fallen angel's crusade – Kouji permanently to Duskmon, Takuya to who knows what, and the rest to her own ineptitude. She's made a space for herself at the Wind Terminal, where she couldn't escape the constant influx of new stories about friends killed, people displaced, landscapes destroyed, a steady wave of misery on a scale beyond comprehension that everyone there learned to survive each day beneath the weight of.

But this quiet atrocity of a single stranger guts her. The others Cherubimon has hurt at least know what they've lost. Duskmon doesn't even understand he's been wronged.

It doesn't take back what he did or the consequences of Kouji's death. It doesn't lessen her hate. It doesn't change anything.

It's just yet another horror allowed to occur because no one stopped it.

She startles as Renamon fades into existence with a bundle of firewood couched under his arm. He looks between them both, brightening a little at what he sees, then holds the gourd out to Duskmon. "I'm back. We have to boil this, right?"

"No." Duskmon shifts his attention from Izumi, who uses the lull to try to bring herself back under control. "The gourd sterilized it already."

Renamon blinks, then considers his firewood.

Duskmon says, "We can use that for cooking. Are noodles alright? I'm not up for anything more complicated."

Renamon seems happy with that, though his gaze flicks over Duskmon's injuries even as he smiles. "Then I'll get more water. Can I have the pot?"

Once he leaves, Duskmon stands to pass the gourd to Izumi. She bites her lip and takes it from him. Her fingers brush his gauntlets, and she's forcibly reminded that the last time she touched him she nearly broke his neck, and that, before that, he sliced off two of her limbs.

She gulps downs half of the bottle, then returns it. He retakes a seat with his back against a tree, unclasps the plate in his helmet that covers his mouth, and finishes the rest of the water with considerably more restraint, taking shallow sips with long breaks between. He makes no move to continue the conversation Renamon interrupted.

Izumi needs to get the most important question out of the way at some point. "Are you still planning to scan this island?"

Duskmon lowers the bottle. "You'd stop me if I tried. Not worth it."

"So if I leave..."

"Then I'll scan it," he replies. No attempt to soften the sentiment.

"Okay," she sighs, dragging a hand through her hair. "I'll worry about this later."

If he's been Duskmon his entire life, what incentive would he have had to learn how to deflect or mince words? Until Izumi evolved, the only person he's met who can hurt him is his own boss, who... he did lie to, just now, if only by omission: he hid the news of Renamon's evolution.

So he understands the concept. He simply doesn't see a reason to with Izumi. She probably is less scary than Cherubimon.

If he won't lie to her, she can ask the other most important question.

"About Renamon – did you take him from the Village of Beginnings because he can use one of the Spirits?" Duskmon's attention sharpens, and she flinches. But he doesn't deny it. "Is it Wood? Or..." She takes a shaky breath. Takuya should have Earth, which leaves one other. "Light. He's Light. Isn't he." Duskmon likely wouldn't have such an attachment if Renamon was Arbormon's or Grottomon's successor. He's not hung up over them the way he seems to be with Kouji.

"How did you...?"

Because Cherubimon's done the same at least once already, to the person sitting across from her. "Why didn't you force him to take on the Spirits as soon as he hatched?" He makes to reply, but the answer comes to Izumi first. "Cherubimon hasn't finished changing the Spirits of Light the way he has the Spirits of Darkness."

He stares at her. "That... makes sense."

"You didn't wonder about it at all?"

His mouth twists. "No. Not about that." He finishes drinking, then fits the armor piece back between his helmet's teeth.

"What did you wonder about, then?"

Duskmon says nothing.

She leans in. "Will you let Cherubimon do it?"

"I..."

"You can't. Don't do that to him. Kouji wouldn't have wanted his Spirits used that way." It's the truest thing she's ever said, but Kouji probably wouldn't have wanted Izumi to keep wielding his name as a weapon against his killer, either. Sorry, Kouji. I have to do this for someone else's sake.

Duskmon glances aside, for the first time unable to meet her eyes.

Renamon returns more quickly than before and starts to set up a cooking station, fighting off Duskmon's attempts to take over. He lights a fire by snapping his claws to conjure a blue flame but fails several tries at constructing a frame to hang the pot from. Duskmon has to demonstrate.

Duskmon acts more subdued around him than he did before, slower to speak and to touch. Izumi suspects Renamon notices too, but he doesn't draw attention to it outside of worried looks.

She nearly killed both of them several hours ago.

And Duskmon nearly did the same to her. From the outside, she might seem just as unconcerned about it as they do.

Renamon makes another water run for soup after the noodles cook through. Izumi, feeling a little surreal, offers seaweed she has stashed. Duskmon takes it after a brief hesitation and combines it in the pot with miso, dried mushrooms, and pickled ginger.

The resulting broth smells better by far than a meal she would make for herself. Somehow it doesn't surprise her. She doesn't know how to explain it, but Duskmon just seems like the type to know how to cook. It's not a thought that makes a lot of sense, especially since she can't easily picture Cherubimon or the other Warriors teaching him how.

Eating poses challenges. Renamon asks to try chopsticks. Duskmon only has a fork, which he needs for himself because he doesn't have fingers, so he whittles a pair for him while the soup simmers. Izumi gives Renamon the rundown on how to use them, and then they struggle through the meal together, Renamon mostly succeeding only in spinning his noodles around in his bowl and Izumi fighting to make her chopsticks cooperate with her left hand because she can't raise her right arm without pain.

"You can just use your mouth," says Duskmon once he and Izumi have both finished and Renamon still has most of his bowl left.

Renamon's shoulders slump. "Yeah," he sighs, and sticks his muzzle in. When he finishes a few sloppy seconds later, he volunteers to wash the dishes.

Duskmon says, "You don't have to do everything yourself. I'm not bedridden."

"I want to. Just this once, at least."

"Can I go with you?" says Izumi, climbing to her feet. "I need to wash the blood off." She's still covered in it, and the smell has been worsening.

"Yeah," says Renamon, and then to Duskmon he adds, "We'll be fine, you can stay here. Really!"

Duskmon eyes him but makes no move to stand. "Come back soon."

Izumi's back prickles as she follows Renamon farther into the trees. She felt safer from Duskmon when she could see where he was. But he likely won't try anything by this point, especially after he let Renamon go with her alone.

"I haven't apologized yet," she says.

The next bearer of the Spirits of Light hums and glances her way.

"I'm sorry. I... there's no excuse. You shouldn't have gotten hurt."

He smiles wanly. "Yeah. It's... Can I say something? And you won't tell Duskmon?"

She nods.

The quiet stretches before he whispers, "I can't forgive either of you yet." He tilts his head up, looking at the passing tree trunks rather than at her. "But it's – okay. Just please don't do that again. I know you weren't mad at me, but if one of you had died I would have been hurt by that too. So please don't fight unless it'll actually..." He swallows. "Please don't fight."