Life evolves, changes at a slow, steady pace- until something big happens and tilts everything on its axis once again. This is where they find themselves at once more, COVID leaving so many things in limbo. Shinsuke hums under his breath, strokes Coronamon's body and mulls it over. He wishes he knew, had answers, but for now... for now, the digidestined will just have to do the best they can with what they're given, as they always have.

There are fewer of them now, and it's a relief when the digiport works as needed to get them through the data stream into the other world. Shinsuke wonders if perhaps it's because he's strong enough to help power it just for a few of them, but ultimately shakes the thought off, just pleased to be back where he belongs. "Let's go," he says softly, glad when Miz, Ziggler, and Morrison fall in line with little hesitation.

"I guess this is the one we're going to?" Mike wonders, flicking a finger at one of the more insistently flashing lights on the map.

"Yes," he says calmly, leading the way. It is a simple enough village, built out of straw and mud caked together to form little huts for the digimon who had chose to live there, build a home, until danger came.

Things seem quiet, but they're aware that that doesn't always mean anything in this world, so they continue on until they catch sight of a young Lopmon who keeps peeking at them, then yelping and scurrying away just to repeat the process. Shinsuke approaches and kneels down to smile at the small rabbit type Digimon. "Hello," he greets her.

She squeaks but stands her ground, staring up at him with wide, wet eyes. "Hello." She struggles for a minute, and then, "Are you digidestined?"

"Yes, we are," Shinsuke informs her, hands gentle as he reaches out and brushes a hand over her forehead. "Is there something you need from us? You've been keeping an eye on us for quite awhile now, as if trying to lead us somewhere perhaps."

"Oh!" she gasps, impressed by his awareness of her, her intentions. "Yes, actually, I do!" She nuzzles briefly into his touch, a soft blush covering her face. "Please, can you... can you come with me?"

"Of course," Shinsuke tells her calmly and she lights up even further, waiting until he stands up once more to grip his pant leg with her paw and lead the way, moving as quickly as she could with her smaller statue.

"I'm so happy you all are here, we've heard so much about the digidestined but never got to see one before!" she breathes out, anxiously glancing around.

Shinsuke glances behind at the others and Morrison shrugs, the group quietly following as Lopmon leads them further into the village. Worries that perhaps this is a trap permeates in Shinsuke's mind, but he keeps his fretting to himself, face impassive and calm as Lopmon looks up at him. "We're almost there!"

"Ok," he says simply, watching as she tugs more insistently on his pant leg, clearly eager to keep him moving. He can hear Morrison and Miz whispering behind him, but ultimately chooses just to keep his attention on what's before him, things feeling more and more wrong the further they follow Lopmon. "Can you tell us what you've witnessed here, so we're more prepared for whatever is to come?"

Lopmon seems distracted, briefly glancing up at him before facing forward once more. "It was by these houses here, a strange shadow of a creature- I've never seen anything like it before, and it scared the villagers, some even disappeared. Things are usually not that quiet here." Her claws dig deeper into the fabric, and Shinsuke briefly mourns his carefully designed pants, before woefully shrugging it off. "We're here."

They stand in a quiet circle and look around, seeing nothing. "Are you sure-" Miz has just started to ask when Lopmon extracts herself from Shinsuke, leaving behind deep tears in his clothes, and he exhales slowly, still looking intently, trying to see any sign of what Lopmon was so afraid of. "Hey, where are you going?"

She doesn't answer, walking towards one of the huts. She peers inside through a dilapidated door, and her entire being changes- her body floods with a sudden wave of dark energy and she exhales before turning into a wispy shadow of a creature that twists and swoops, wrapping itself around the waist of... Kuzuhamon.

Shinsuke hisses out a breath. "You," he says, fingers twitching as he stares at the grey tinted digimon that looks so similar to Sakuyamon. "I see you found the ability to evolve even further."

She smirks at him. "Yes, I did." Stroking a finger down the side of her fox spirit friend, she laughs, a dark, menacing sort of cackle. "You did so good luring them down here, my love," she tells the spirit, before looking back up at them, all affections sliding from her face. "Just in time for me to destroy all of them." She slams her staff down, the rings upon it vibrating against each other with the impact, and Shinsuke grits his teeth.

"Coronamon!" His digimon doesn't need further instruction, immediately digivolving into Apollomon.

Mike and Ziggler scramble to catch up, Beelzebumon and Justimon quickly flanking him. Kuzuhamon seems unimpressed, however, holding her arm out. "Go," she says simply, and the fox spirit quickly detaches itself from her and lunges with a vile squeech.

It's fast, it hits harder than most creatures Shinsuke has ever encountered, and it doesn't discriminate between humans and digimon, leaving them all sprawled out on the ground, moaning and curling in on themselves. "John," Mike mutters, struggling to crawl over to his friend, who's fighting just to catch his breath a few feet away. "John, are you-" He makes it over, covers John's body with his own, and just holds on as the fox spirit circles overhead, looking for another opportunity to strike.

"Stay down! Everyone," Shinsuke orders, breathless and a little bloody himself, forcing himself to his feet. He's wavering, everything aches, but he chooses to ignore it, staring viciously at Kuzuhamon. "I cannot allow this to continue. You have reached your end," he tells her.

She laughs through a scoff, once more shifting her staff to point it right at him. "You think so, Shinsuke? I think the Digidestined have been allowed to continue for far too long. What exactly do you do? Stir up tension in this world, entice darkness to attack all the harder, destroy more villages, end innocent lives just for what? To get you all vulnerable to attack? What point is it all if you cause more harm than good?" She walks forward, graceful and grim all at once, and he watches her with a frown. "Imagine all of the lives I will be saving when I destroy you right here, right now." This time, when she slams her staff down into the dirt, it starts glowing, letting off massive amounts of dark energy, and Shinsuke gasps, turning to warn the others- but there's no time.

It hurts. He hates it. It tears at his skin, at his mind, delving deeper into his thoughts, shredding through everything with a viciousness that he's never felt before. He's not a good person, he knows this- he's done things in both Japan and America, betrayed people he claimed were his friends, ruined good people's careers and livelihoods, and- He chokes on thin air, forcing his eyes open, finding himself kneeling before Kuzuhamon, and she looks livid, confusion crossing her dark gaze. "How? How did you survive that? How did any of you survive that?!"

Shinsuke forces himself to look over his shoulder, finding Mike, John and Dolph collapsed behind him, panting but whole. "Because," Shinsuke gasps. "We may not be purely innocent, we may have stirred the lingering darkness in this world and made it reveal itself, but we do our best to make things better." Apollomon stands before him, solid and certain, and Shinsuke laughs, a breathless little wheeze, his head still throbbing from whatever Kuzuhamon had tried to do to him. "And now it's your turn."

"My turn to what?" Kuzuhamon snaps. "Do you truly believe you can defeat me? I am powerful, even more so than what you've experienced in the past. You cannot handle me in this form, I assure you-"

But Mike gets up, and Ziggler finds his feet, and John wavers next to Mike, his digivice clutched in his fingers, a resolute look on his face. "He's not alone," Mike says shakily. "We're all here too."

Apollomon finds himself backed up by Justimon and Beelzebumon, glancing back at them for a moment before turning to face Kuzuhamon, who still seems nonplussed by it all. "Please," she scoffs. "You three? Truly expect to do something to defeat me?"

"Yes," Beelzebumon tells her simply. "We do."

She throws her head back and laughs uproariously at this, still scoffing and mumbling to herself when she finally focuses once more on them. "Stupid, stupid children," she says, almost sounding fond of it all as she looks once more at the fox spirit wrapped around her waist. "Go!"

Justimon greets the fox creature halfway, however, and Kuzuhamon can do nothing but watch in horrified awe as he slices straight through its shadow, its form disappearing. "You would dare to try to destroy kuda gitsune?!" she roars, waving her arm and resummoning the creature.

Before Justimon could move in for another attack, John stumbles a few steps forward, Mike bracing him protectively. "John, stay back here- it's safer-"

"I'm fine," he says, digivice outstretched and vibrating lowly in his hand. "I, I... think..." Before he can vocalize exactly what he's trying to do, a sharp burst of light blasts from the device and encircles the fox spirit, causing it to squeech and writhe around. This time, when Justimon slices through it, it shatters into data.

"WHAT?!" Kuzuhamon screams as John once more collapses to his knees, trembling against Mike's hands as he tries to check on his friend. "You... you dare to-..." Her cry echoes throughout the village, causing most of the huts nearest to them to collapse.

Shinsuke hisses and steps back towards the others, his ears ringing. "Apollomon!" he calls out, and his partner nods, fire thrumming around him as he approaches Kuzuhamon.

"Solblaster!" he cries out, the flames intensifying before he sends them out towards Kuzuhamon, the creature still so lost in her rage and loss that she barely notices it until it's upon her, wrenching a scream from her already taxed throat.

Her armor singes, her staff twists in her arms as the pure heat melts it, and she wails. "NO! It will not end like this!" She slams her staff once more and a wave of destructive energy washes towards them once more... just to fade away as quickly as it'd appeared, her body collapsing into the heat as her strength fails her. "No..." Her voice fails her, her knees give out, and she lands heavily into the wave of flames surrounding her, furthering along her own defeat as she stares up at Shinsuke. "I cannot have lost to the digidestined... I..."

He watches her, some pity mixed in with his relief. "You may have started out in this world with good intensions, I may never know." He kneels down, careful to avoid the flames, but allowing her to watch him as her body crumbles into data in the flames. "I hope if you return to this world, you will be thoughtful and pure once more. As Sakuyamon should be."

She exhales one, last breath, her eyes fluttering closed. "Sakuyamon," she whispers wistfully before her body shatters into little pieces of data that float away as the fire dissipates.

Shinsuke sighs and gets to his feet, absently massaging his temple as he rejoins the other digidestined, staring thoughtfully at Morrison as Mike helps him stand. "As much as we all need partners in this world and we still need to figure out where yours is at," he says slowly, "the way you've harnessed the power of your digivice so quickly is impressive. Thank you for helping with the fox spirit, I doubt we would have won as easily if you hadn't."

John still looks pained, and a little breathless, but he smiles at Shinsuke's words anyway. "Any time," he says, leaning against Mike as Shinsuke leads the way back out of the village, all of them eager to go back home.