AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Well boy-howdie. I can't believe I left you alone for 2 months when I finally uploaded the previous chapter. I'm so glad that I got this one drafted straight after the last one was posted so I could post this one right…

Oh…

What do you mean it's been 3 months this time?

I keep telling myself that I'm going to get back to regular posting. I did it with my last fic, so I should be able to do it with this one, right? Except… when I was working on my last fic, we were all stuck in a global lockdown. I had nothing else to do but write and edit and post. Now I have a full-time job and my own business and a semi-active sports/social life, plus general Being A Grown Up stuff that all seems to be happening At Once…

In hindsight, maybe regular posting isn't quite as achievable as I first thought.

I am coming to the end of summer now, and things are looking to get a little calmer as I head in to autumn and winter. So whilst I'm not going to make any promises, I am going to be cautiously optimistic that I might be able to hopefully post again sometime soon.

Thank you for your patience, and a huge welcome to everyone who has joined the story while I've been AFK. Massive thank you as always to everyone who has left a review or sent me a message (apologies if I haven't replied yet, I'm still working on my inbox.)

VISITORS

The room was dark and warm when Ken awoke with a jolt, drenched in sweat and gasping for air. It took him a moment to gather his bearings, and he stared at the plain walls for several long minutes before he was able to place them. Osamu's bedroom. No; his bedroom. It had become his months after Osamu had become a photograph on the mantelpiece.

The apartment was silent as he slipped into the hallway. The early hours of the morning were the only ones he saw outside of his room. Leaving during the day led to unavoidable questions and awkward silences as his parents slowly changed from the bugs under his feet to the people he didn't deserve. Everything was different now; so different that Ken found himself wondering when it had all begun to change in the first place. He shuffled in to the kitchen, feeling his brother's portrait watching him as he poured himself a glass of water.

Not too cold is it, Kenny boy? he asked, his voice warm and gently, like the one he used to comfort Ken's nightmares about monsters in the closet or demons under the bed. Now Ken's demons were smarter, darker, and oh so very real, and there was no Osamu to chase them away. These demons were his and his alone; alone he had made them, and alone he would face them.

Maybe one of his battles would lead him to redemption.

Satisfied that his parents were sound asleep, Ken took advance of the peace and quiet to take a brief shower, and for a short while he could wrap himself in steam and keep the whispering of the cold, black sea from creeping up on him. The darkness was waiting for him when he emerged; it followed him back to his room and watched him as he buried himself back beneath his blankets, where he fell into a fitful sleep until the first rays of Dawn pierced through his blinds.

His father rose first, calling a brief "Good morning, son!" through Ken's bedroom door before he left for his morning train. His mother came next, knocking lightly on his door and asking if he would like any breakfast. He replied with a quiet "No thank you, I'm not very hungry." It wasn't a complete lie; his stomach had stopped cramping days ago, and whilst he knew he probably should eat something, the thought of food made his empty stomach churn. He heard his mother's worried hum before she disappeared in to the kitchen, and he resolved to leave a plate on the draining rack later that night to try and put her mind at ease.

For the first few days after returning from the Digital World, he'd barely been able to tell up from down. He'd been feverish, unable to tell the difference between waking nightmares and outright hallucinations. His mother had called a doctor and the doctor had said it was just a bad summer cold. Ken thought the doctor was wrong. There had been something else – a feeling inside his head of something being pulled back. Something had been wrapped tightly around his mind, and as the fever raced through his body he'd felt the pressure slowly easing. A headache he hadn't even realised he'd been nursing had faded, and when Ken had finally gotten out of bed several days later it had almost felt like waking up from a very long, very bad dream.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could pretend that's all it was. That he hadn't tortured digimon, or enslaved them, or torn apart their homes in some endless conquest. Sometimes he could convince himself that it had been a game after all.

But then he would spy his digivice lying on the desk. He would remember the screaming and the pleading; the eyes of innocent digimon turning red as he laughed; the sound of an army of slaves marching to his unheard drumbeat. He heard her words – the memory of her gentle voice repeating over and over until he thought he was going mad.

It's real, all of it. The digimon, the world, Wormmon… It's all real.

He found his old notebook, full to the brim with ideas for dark rings spirals and towers. He had leafed through the pages; eyes skimming notes that might have been written in another language for all the sense they made now, and his headache had returned with such force that it made him sick.

He wanted to atone. To try and fix the damage he'd done. For days he had sat at his computer, holding his digivice up to the screen and praying to be allowed a second chance.

His prayers went unanswered.

The gate on his computer failed to connect most days, and when it did it offered him blurry glimpses of landscapes he didn't recognise. He tried to fix it – to get inside the gate's coding and force a stable connection – but his efforts only led to more headaches.

At long last, he'd conceded defeat. The Digital World did not want him anymore. Even the Dark Ocean seemed to have had its fill of him; it lingered on the edge of his nightmares, waves whispering just out of earshot, but it never claimed him. Ken had barely left his room since; resigned to his nightmares and prepared to live through his punishment until there was either nothing left to punish him for, or nothing left of him to punish.

A gentle knock jolted him from his thoughts. He glanced to his clock in confusion; it was too early for his mother to be asking him about lunch.

"Ken, dear," she said in a voice that was stronger than usual, "there's a friend from school here to see you. I thought it might be good for you to have some company, so I hope you don't mind that I let her in."

Ken frowned. He didn't have friends; he had always considered them beneath him. The closest he could think of were perhaps the other members of the soccer team, but he had barely regarded them as acquaintances and he'd treated them as such. Certainly none of them would waste their final days of summer vacation coming to check on him. And besides, they were all boys; he didn't know of a single girl who would consider themselves close enough for a house call.

Curiosity took him then and he rose to his feet, pulling the door open slowly. He stared past his mother's visible relief and found himself both stunned and disappointed as he eyed his guest. It seemed even in defeat, he could not escape her.

"You didn't have to come," he said, forcing a smile and feigning politeness for his mother's sake. "I'm just a little out of sorts, nothing to worry about." She smiled at him and tucked several strands of brown hair behind her ear.

"I wanted to make sure that you were okay." A part of Ken wanted to believe her. There was something so genuine about her smile and the note of concern in the voice. But there was no denying the pain he'd caused her – over and over and over again – and he couldn't shift the feeling that this was more than just a courtesy call. There had to be some ulterior motive – one that he would not discover with his mother standing between them – and so he stepped back, holding his door open and motioning for her to come inside, and he quietly closed the door behind her. They stood in silence, and Ken waited until he heard his mother turn the radio on in the kitchen before he spoke.

"You're alone." She hadn't even brought her partner (not that Ken could blame either of them).

"I didn't think you'd want everyone barging in on you."

"More like nobody else wanted to come."

"Nobody else knows I'm here." He shouldn't have been surprised. This wasn't exactly the first time she'd wandered in to his domain without telling anyone.

"Why are you here?" He'd wanted the question to come out strong, but his voice fell flat and something shifted behind her eyes. Pity. He hated it.

"I came to see if you would join us." Something flared in his head – a stabbing pain at the base of his skull that made him grit his teeth.

"Why? So you can put me on a leash and make sure the Kaiser's being a good little boy?"

"The Digital World is in trouble. We need all the help with can get-"

"And you thought you'd come to me?" His sneer took more energy than it used to, and he couldn't quite muster the same bite to his voice. He supposed there wasn't much point; in all the times they'd crossed paths, there were less than a handful of occasions when he'd truly manage to intimidate her. And the last he'd seen her, she'd seen in to his soul, watching moments he had hoped never to remember. With a sigh he let the snarl fade away, turning his back to her to stare instead out of the window.

"Ken-"

"I've tried," he muttered, his shoulders slumping. "I wanted to go back and help, to fix all the damage that I've done, but the Digital World won't let me back in. It doesn't want me, and it doesn't need my help."

"It's not just you; we can't get back in either," she answered. "There's a digimon – Vamdemon – he showed up when you and I were… talking, I guess. He threw us all out of the Digital World and he's managed to block access from any gate."

"So why are you even here?" he asked, turning to face her again. "What good can I possibly do if you can't even get there?"

"We think we may have a way of getting back to the Digital World without using a computer gate. The first time the others went to the Digital World it was through some sort of rift. Koushiro thinks there might be a weakness where the two worlds overlap, and with our combined digivices we might be able to force our way through."

"And if your theory is wrong?"

"Then we all work together to figure out a new plan."

"So either way I'm stuck with people who can't stand to be near me. I think I'll pass."

She took a step closer, her expression pleading. "Please, Ken-"

"What do you think is going to happen?" he asked. Frustration and irritation coloured his voice and he didn't try to hide them. "I doubt your friends would be willing to be in the same room as me, let alone go camping. There's a reason you didn't tell them you were coming, and it wasn't for my sake. They hate me, and you should to. Especially you."

"You're not the Kaiser," she said, her voice firm. "If you were then you-"

"Would've killed you a long time ago?" he spat. She pressed her lips together and he narrowed his eyes. "I tried. Several times, in fact. And when digimon wouldn't do it for me I tried with my own bare hands." He could still remember how they'd felt wrapped around her neck. His nightmares would never let him forget.

"Then why use Bakemon to trick Daisuke when you had us all captive?" she pressed. "Why lock them away and use Bakemon instead?"

"You weren't a Bakemon."

"That was different. You had no reason to spare the others." He turned away, scowling at the carpet. He had no answer. He couldn't remember why he had kept the others safely tucked away instead of putting them in danger. A voice in the back of his head, perhaps – the conscience that the Kaiser could never completely erase.

He could, however, remember why he had singled her out.

"For the record," he murmured, "it wasn't because of you. You weren't supposed to be in any danger; I never thought for a moment that Moyomiya wouldn't choose to rescue you." Silence followed, and when he risked a glance over his shoulder he found her smiling.

He hated it.

She reached in to her purse and withdrew a neatly folded square of paper, which she held towards him.

"This is where we're going," she said. When he didn't move to take it she walked to his desk and placed it gently beside his D-3. "Please come with us. I know Wormmon would be happy to see you." He tried to ignore how his heart yearned for the partner he had abused and abandoned. He grit his teeth. Wormmon was better off without him.

They all were.

He walked to his desk, all too aware of the hope in her eyes as he picked up the paper. He didn't open it. Instead he tore it in half and then half again before pulling open the balcony door and throwing the paper in to the wind. Something uncomfortable bubbled in his stomach – something like regret – and when he turned back to his room the sorrow on her face only made the feeling stronger.

There was a tentative knock on the door, and his mother's head appeared. She smiled at them both.

"Ken, dear, I was just about to start lunch," she said. "Is your friend staying?" The girl shifted her purse higher on to her shoulder, a smile firmly in place as she dipped in to a grateful bow.

"Thank you, Ichijouji-san, but I should probably get going. Thank you for having me." She straightened and turned back to Ken with a sad smile. "I hope you feel better soon."

Ken barricaded himself in his room for the rest of the day, and the next, and the next. His mother was full of curiosity – Who was she? She seemed very nice. Would she be visiting again? – but Ken didn't know how to answer her questions even if he wanted to. The realisation that he didn't even know her name hit him harder than it had any right to, and he was grateful when his mother finally gave up on her questioning.

On the third day – a Thursday – he had managed to make it all the way to the afternoon without being disturbed. His guilt and grief had finally relented somewhat, and in an effort to appease his mother's worry he had picked up his school books to finish off his summer reading. It seemed harder than it used to be, and the effort quickly gave him a headache that started in the base of his neck and settled behind his eyes. Somewhere around midday he closed his book with a defeated sigh and slumped back in his chair.

His mother knocked on his door.

"Ken, dear, you have a visitor!" Ken groaned and ran a hand over his face, not sure if he was ready for another confrontation, but avoiding her would only make his mother worry more. And so he dutifully opened the door, only to be assaulted by a wave of violet hair.

"Do you not check your emails?" the girl demanded as the door swung closed behind her. Ken blinked in surprise as she blew past him, too surprised to speak. She set a small duffel bag down by the patio doors and crouched low to yank the zip open before turning back to him, pushing her glasses back up her nose with a scowl. "Your emails. Do you check them?"

His throat tightened and his mouth went dry, and after several seconds of letting him stammer incoherently the girl made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a huff as she straightened.

"Look, we're going camping this weekend, and we-"

"I know," he blurted. She paused, a suspicious eyebrow arching behind the large, thin frames.

"You know?"

"Your friend told me," he answered. Suspicion became confusion and Ken found himself feeling uneasy. "I'm… I'm guessing she didn't send you as a follow up then." Something flicked a switch in her brain and her expression shifted.

"Hikari was here?" He shrugged, unsure, and she frowned again. "Short, brown hair, you kidnapped her partner…" He winced but nodded and the girl folded her arms with a huff. "I can't believe she didn't tell me she was coming!" Behind her, the bag rustled softly as a familiar warbling voice emerged.

"Miyako, you didn't tell her that you were coming either." Ken's heart jumped to his throat as Wormmon tentatively poked his head out of the bag, taking in the room with his large eyes before finally stopping on Ken. He shrank back a little, until only his eyes and the peaks of his antenna were visible. "Hello, Ken."

"Wormmon," he breathed.

"Yes, Wormmon," the girl – Miyako – reprimanded, storming towards him. "The same Wormmon that you left behind." She jabbed an accusatory finger firmly in to his chest, catching him by surprise and forcing him to stumble backwards to keep from falling over. Miyako's scowl deepened. "Do you know how lonely he's been?!"

"I thought… I thought you would send him back," he mumbled. His throat was on fire, and his eyes were burning. Miyako planted her fists on her hips.

"On his own? Then he would have been completely alone. We're not monsters," she scoffed.

No, Ken thought, but I am.

"I've been taking care of him as best I can, but he needs his partner." Another prod to his chest; this one he was prepared for and he stood his ground. He curled his hands in to fists, feeling the searing heat of her furious amber gaze, and he turned his head away.

"I'm sorry, Ken," Wormmon mumbled. Ken turned to him; he'd retreated almost fully inside the bag again, leaving the tips of his antenna twitching nervously over the zip. "I asked her if she knew where I could find you because… because I missed you… We shouldn't have come. I'm sorry-"

"You have nothing to be sorry for." Her words were gentle but her tone was stern, and Wormmon seemed both relieved and confused. Miyako turned her attention back to Ken and folded her arms. "You, on the other hand, have got some serious making up to do."

"I-"

"Wormmon's been telling me about you. About what you were like before you starting calling yourself the Kaiser. He seems to think you're a nice guy. And if he's willing to give you a second chance after everything you did to him, I'm not gonna stop him." She paused, looking him up and down as though debating whether or not to say something else. After a moment she continued. "He said you're pretty smart, too. I mean you've gotta be, with all your awards and your accomplishments and everything, but he said you know a lot about the Digital World."

"I did," he murmured, his mind wandering to the black journal in his desk drawer and the notes that didn't quite make sense anymore. She didn't seem to hear him.

"I mean, Koushiro's great and all – he's been studying the Digital World for years and he knows a lot – but you basically built yourself an empire, and you could travel back and forth way before we could. It took us weeks to get our gate up and running. And now we can't even figure out what's wrong, let alone how to fix it. Wormmon reckons you can probably help us out, and right now we could do with just about all the help we can get." She reached in to her pocket, withdrawing several hair ties, grips, sweet wrappers and the lid of a lip balm before finally alighting on a crumpled piece of paper which she held out towards him. "This is where we're going and when we're leaving. My number's on there in case you need a ride. Mantarou can take you so you don't have to be stuck on a road trip with everyone. He owes me."

Ken stared down at the paper and the information that had been scrawled across it. His stomach tied itself in knots as he swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat.

"I'm not going-"

"I drew you a map on the back. My drawing skills aren't that great, and nobody could give me a straight answer about exactly where they were when the gate opened the first time, but hopefully it's good enough for you to find us if you make your own way to-"

"I'm not going!"

"Well what else are you gonna do? Sit in here by yourself and sulk?" she demanded, closing the gap between them. They were the same height, he noticed as he saw his reflection in her glasses. He looked pathetic. He turned away, heading towards the door. Perhaps he could convince her to leave. She huffed at his back. "The Digital World needs our help, Ichijouji. It chose us for a reason, whether we like it or not, and we don't just get to walk away from it. The Digital World needs us – the digimon need us. Us! Me, them, you – us!"

"Well I don't see why!" he roared. Then flinched. Too loud. They were being too loud. He froze, pausing to listen for his mother, unable to tell if the silence was a relief or a cause for concern. He took a deep breath, pulled back his shoulders, and continued in a quieter voice. "I'm not going, and that decision is final."

"But if you would just-"

"I'm not changing my mind." He snatched the paper from her hand, crumpled it in to a ball and threw it at the bin underneath his desk, ignoring how it bounced off the rim and rolled in to the darkness. He would get it later. "Just… leave."

"But-"

"Leave!"

"Fine!" she bellowed, arms locked at her sides. She stared at him a moment longer, silently fuming, her lips pressed tightly together and her crimson cheeks puffed out. After a moment's though she decided against whatever she had been about to say and she stomped towards his door, yanking it open and shouting a loud (but polite) goodbye to his mother before slamming the door on her way out.

Ken slowly closed his bedroom door, resting his head against the cool wood with a heavy sigh. His mother gently knocked on the wood, and the sound sent shivers through his teeth.

"Ken, dear?" she asked, her voice soft and timid. Ken closed his burning eyes and grit his teeth. "Is everything all right?"

"I… I'm tired. I'm going to lie down."

"Oh… are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine." A pause, and then he added: "I don't think I'm ready for any more visitors."

"Oh." There was a sadness in her voice that made Ken's heart lurch. He dug his fingernails in to his palms. "Well, all right. If you need anything, you just call, okay? I'm just down the hall."

She lingered for a moment – Ken heard her anxious shifting on the other side of the door – before she eventually shuffled back towards the lounge. He sighed, letting his shoulders sag. He felt drained… Perhaps he should lie down. His headache was returning with a vengeance, and in the silence that followed he was sure he could hear the sound of waves-

"Ken?"

He jumped, pressing his back against the door as his eyes settled on the duffel bag. She hadn't taken it with her. Wormmon was still here, poking his head tentatively out of the bag, his large eyes watering as he stared at Ken from across the room. Ken opened his mouth, but his throat was dry and his voice had deserted him, and as he stared at his partner he heard every cruel remark and scathing retort and heartless jab echoing through his mind. It was deafening. The tears began to fall as his legs trembled beneath him, and slowly he slid down the door until he was sitting on the floor with buried his face in his knees.

The bag rustled. Ken heard Wormmon's quiet shuffling, and then something warm was brushing against Ken's fingers. He curled them in to a fist, snatching them out of reach.

"Ken?" Ken swallowed past the knot in his throat.

"You should have gone back with her," he said, his voice thick as tar as it rose in his throat like bile. Something nudged at Ken's elbow, and like a persistent puppy Wormmon wriggled his way in to Ken's lap and squeezed himself in to the gap between Ken's chest and his legs.

"I didn't want to go with Miyako. I wanted to stay with you."

Perhaps it was the quiet tremor in his voice, or the way the sound resonated in Ken's chest. Perhaps it was because it was said by Wormmon who had been at Ken's side through all the harsh words and the cruel japes; Wormmon who had taken all of his abuse and remained stalwart; Wormmon who had always believed in him, even now, when it seemed impossible for Ken to believe in himself… Whatever it was, it finally pierced the stormcloud that had been hanging over Ken's head since his exile from the Digital World. The downpour came as a flood of tears, and Wormmon nuzzled into his chest, burying himself in the folds of Ken's sweater and holding tightly. They stayed that way long after Ken's tears had stopped, wrapped up in each other and shrouded in a thick blanket of silence. It was comforting.

Eventually Wormmon shifted, blinking his watery eyes up at Ken. "You're not going to send me away again are you?"

Ken opened his mouth, wanting to say yes. Wormmon would be so much better with someone else – anyone else – even loud, bossy Miyako – but the thought of being parted again nearly tore Ken's heart in two. Selfishly he wrapped his arms around Wormmon and squeezed him tightly.

"Never."