My Little Big Sister

Still not dead, still don't own Digimon.

Third Interlude


Realworld, Odaiba City

Hika's Fifteenth Birthday

They were there, together, on the day that the last fragment of Hika's world would end.

She didn't know it yet, of course. Now, her eyes were still bright with hope, and her world was her own, a world built over the years amongst this new kind of normal. Now, she didn't know there was anything of her left to break.

She would know.

"You're fifteen," he told her, and smiled when she showed surprise. "You forgot, didn't you?"

"I forgot." She gazed at the stars. They were sitting together, their missions for the night completed, hand in hand on one of the city's deserted rooftops.

"It's seven years," she said, her hand absently stroking white fur as she watched the sky. "Seven years since it all came down. It feels like…" She paused.

"Like longer?" he guessed, resting his head on the cold tiles.

"Maybe." She sat in contemplation for a moment. "But sometimes it feels like I never really woke up. Like all of this has just been one dream, in one night."

"Hika." He put his arm around her.

"Like I'm going to wake up someday, and they'll be… they'll all be…" She couldn't continue. There was a needed, precious silence.

"I never gave you your birthday present," he remembered, and pulled something from his pocket. She laughed in spite of herself when she saw it was a hat; a silly little thing, small and dark-coloured and with a bow of oddly pretty ribbon attached to one corner. Lifting it in both hands, she put it on.

"I haven't had a birthday present these seven years," she smiled. "I won't forget tonight. Or this hat."

If she could, she would have sat there until dawn. But there were children back at the base—Hika used the word, carelessly now, for humans much, much younger than herself. They needed to be looked after and sheltered. There were chores to do, meals to make. "C'mon, kitty-cat," Hika muttered. "Gotta get home."

The two of them moved as lightly and as stealthily as cats themselves, creeping through the city by the faint moonlight. It wasn't far to go. Back when—Hika swallowed for a moment—back when that guy, Davis, had still been alive, they'd all been trained to take alternative routes home, to dodge any unseen pursuit. Nowadays, it was assumed that the Digimon in this city simply didn't care about what was going on far beneath their feet.

This was the day that Hika's world would end. But she didn't know it. She thought she knew this part of town, as safe as anyone could be in this place.

As she stepped over a broken pipe near the riverbank, Hika lost her footing. It was an accident that could have happened to anyone, anywhere: a few fallen beams from a damaged roof, lying unseen in her path, caught by her lame foot. She scrabbled for balance, but her feet in their battered, ill-fitting shoes would not help her. Helplessly falling, Hika landed in the cold water of the river, spluttering for air.

The hand she clamped over her mouth was too late to stop her shriek of terror.

As she struggled to the shore, holding tightly to the rucksack she always carried, the glow of moonlight on the water was split by an eruption, a mountain of scales and metal rising from the river.

Hika stared up at her destiny. The girl who'd faced down dangers at the age of nine years was paralysed by fear, unable to make a sound or even to throw her beloved rucksack of belongings to safety.

An ear-splitting roar left her in no doubt.

She was a trespasser. This was their city, and she did not belong alive.

As though she were still dreaming, Hika was only half aware of the bolts of air that shot over her head, slamming the dragon with a barrage of power. Roaring now not in anger, but in pain, it turned away from her. The current of water as it moved pulled girl and rucksack back into the icy water, back into a breathless struggle for the surface. Hika did not consider for a moment that it might be better to drown. For her, the story was ended, perhaps, but not for the tiny, precious life still cradled in her rucksack.

Breaking the surface, Hika took a deep breath, forcing her eyes to open.

The water was as still and quiet as a dreamless night.

Forcing herself to swim, Hika made it to the riverbank, calling her boyfriend's name. "Where are you? I'm safe… I'm OK… don't worry, please, I'm here, I'm here…"

She paused for a moment, catching sight of a figure lying on the bank, not understanding. Then she ran to him.

"Hika?" His eyes managed to focus on her as she crouched over him, emptying her bag in a search for medicine, for supplies.

"Shhh. Don't try to talk. I've got to get you home so we can fix you up."

Her hat, her silly ribboned hat, slipped over her eyes as she tried to work through her panicky tears. She shoved the egg that lay at his side into her rucksack, not looking at it or caring for its future. Someone else would worry for that.

"Hika…" And somehow, there were a thousand unspoken words in that one. Hika knew them in her heart, but still she fought against them, tearing at her shirt for makeshift bandages, soaking them in the water of the river.

"It was a… dragon," he whispered, every word painful. "He saved me from… a dragon. Twice, Hika. That was… that was how…"

"But that was seven years ago," she stammered, not sure why the words were coming to her. "He's not here. He's somewhere else now, my love."

"No, he… isn't," the boy murmured, and this time, he wasn't looking at Hika. With a slight smile, he gazed somewhere past her worried eyes. "He's… here. Hika… he's here."

It was over. It had always been over.

Hika was broken. The world around her became a blur as she let one final word escape. "Why?"

"I… promised." He said it as though it explained everything.

And his lips formed her name. Not the alien name she'd taken as her own, as created and foolish as the hat she wore, but her childhood nickname, the name she hadn't heard in seven long years.

A tiny head poked itself out from her rucksack. "Hika!" snapped a small, high voice. Startled even in her despair, she jumped to her feet.

"Hika. Remember what you told me." The small figure in the shadows tugged at her clothes, forcing her to walk forward, step by stumbling step. "Don't cry until we're safe. Don't cry until we're safe. Don't cry…"

"I'm the last now," Hika whispered. Her tears gone for the moment, she reached up in a kind of cold anger, snapping the chain of her necklace. Once, she had clung to it as a magical talisman; now, it was only a stupid trinket. It couldn't save him. "The last of them. Why me?" The words were addressed to no-one in particular, or to anyone who would listen. "Why did it have to be me?"

Hika was gone, now. For the people around her, she would be there still, caring for those she had loved. But something that had been present for seven years was gone, flown away before the dawn.

She would not forget.

When the time came, she would not forget.

And the words formed on Hika's lips as she threw open the door of the memorial room.

"I'll go."