"I understand that things have become more dire," Luke greats Shinsuke. "You're the only one left, huh?"
"Yes," Shinsuke says. "Have you made your selection?"
"I have," Luke says slowly. "Can you do one thing for me in the meanwhile? I have the digidestined selected, but their partners are proving elusive. Could you take the group to the nursery so they can select who would best bond with them?"
Shinsuke hesitates, unsure how to feel about this. "Of course," he finally says, his leader instincts overwhelming everything else. "Who will I be going with?"
Shinsuke swears Luke's lips twitch, ever so slightly, as he peers back down at the paper, then back at him. "Yeah, about that," he says slowly, walking over to him and holding his paper out to him.
Shinsuke frowns, reading and rereading the list, before looking back at him, disbelief in his dark eyes.
-x
Butch, Ludwig Kaiser, Gunther and Shayna Baszler wait quietly, peering around the world. "Well, there's supposed to be one more, but later," Shinsuke says, almost to himself more than the others. Tugging slightly at his bottom lip. "For now, this will have to do," he exhales. "Come, let's go. The sooner we get to the nursery, the better."
As the group makes their way to the digiport to begin the journey to meet their partners, Shinsuke almost thinks it's cute how obvious the anxious and worry is among the group of future Digidestined before him.
"Is this a difficult process?" Shayna asks at one point and Shinsuke looks over at her, relieved for even a short break from the earpiercing silence.
"No," he tells her. "It is quite simple. I just hope you don't mind holding a baby, they love to meet and be held by new Digidestined."
She grimaces but shrugs. "There are worse things, I guess," she mumbles, falling in behind him and holding her digivice out as instructed, a small sensation of being intrigued to see what's on the other side of thie portal added to her excitement. "DIGIPORT OPEN!"
