content warnings: drowning, nightmares, violation of personal space, mention of character death
Marine Day (海の日) is a national holiday in Japan held during the summer. Odaiba celebrates it with an annual Lantern Festival (海の灯まつり) at the Odaiba bay.
It always starts with drowning.
Endless waves spit her out only to swallow her anew, as the waters toss and turn her into their shadowy depths. She flails her arms for the surface, but each effort seems to only tow her further into this monstrous tide.
Once the ocean consumes her, hundreds of ghostly sea demons weigh on every limb. She shoves them as hard as she can, but they are too many, too heavy. They pull her deeper, deeper, until she finally falls into the comfort of her warm bed, now wide awake, and drenched in a cold sweat.
Hikari has been having this nightmare for weeks.
She knows it is all in her head, but it feels so real that the salty breath of the sea is enough to sink something to her stomach. The mere murmur of the tide is all it takes to make her take the long route home.
The dread is so great, that when Miyako asks if she would join her at the Marine Day festival, she almost says no. But before the word could leave her lips, she sees the twinkle in her eye, and the plea clasped in her hands, and how could she refuse?
Her friend is ecstatic. They hadn't seen much of each other since the older girl's graduation, and who else could take such lovely night shots of the lanterns lighting the bay?
Hikari tries her best to share this excitement. After all, the demons are only in her head. They aren't real. And what isn't real can't hurt her.
This is her mantra as she tries to face her fears the day before the festival. For this is a peaceful time — perhaps the most peaceful of her life in years — and there is nothing to worry about.
She will catch festival organizers setting final rows of lanterns on the shore, and spot the perfect vantage point for tomorrow's photos, the best backdrop to highlight the little lanterns shimmering into the night. She'll bike up to the bay so fast that she won't even have time to think — like ripping off a band-aid.
But she is barely two blocks away when the salty air reaches her senses, and suddenly all air disappears. The world falls away, until there is nothing except rising waters and a thousand ghosts caressing each inch of her skin.
She isn't sure how her bike fell, or how long she's been on the ground before Takeru finds her.
It is his voice on her name that pulls her back to her senses. He is kneeling next to her, hand rubbing comforting circles on her back. In spite of herself, she knows she shouldn't be surprised; after all, this was the route they shared until she started taking the long way home.
It's this heat, she says. Biked too fast, I think. Just catching my breath.
She doesn't look up to see if he believes, but he doesn't question. He stays until she rediscovers air, then pulls her up, and rights her bike.
He doesn't ask if she's okay, and doesn't even offer to walk her home — he just does. (Perhaps he wouldn't have accepted any alternative anyway.) One hand secures her shoulder, while the other pushes the bike the whole way home.
Before he leaves, he asks her to get some rest. She sees his face and deflects, "Maybe you should speak for yourself". When she sees the knit of his brow though, she promises to try.
But she will get no rest. She has challenged her demons and failed — defeated by a mere sea breeze — and something in her knows that can only mean one thing: tonight will be worse.
It starts with the usual: waves tossing and turning, a tumultuous tide. As they throw her, she almost relaxes at the routine of it all.
But tonight, the waters calm until she finally manages to surface. In its stillness, she sees the breadth of the barren ocean for the first time, illuminated only by the full moon, looking down from a starless sky.
She has just made out a shore by the Odaiba skyline when a single shadow appears above her. As it starts to materialize, it feels somehow familiar.
It expands from the pointed tip of a hat to the glove of an outstretched hand. As she finds a face behind its indigo muffler, their eyes meet, and she recognizes it.
Wizardmon!
His hand reaches down for her, as if to save her once again. She reaches back.
But as their fingers brush, he shatters into a thousand shards of shadows that fade into the darkness.
One.
Hikari has hardly made sense of the scene when another shadow drifts by, on the only piece of debris in the entire ocean. The shadow is much smaller and its pink little ears are so tiny that they solidify immediately. His beady eyes pierce hers with the same weight that the wizard's had.
Chuumon.
Clinging onto the makeshift raft, he struggles to extend his little claw to her. She raises a hand in his direction, but the moment it is out of the water, the little digimon too bursts into hundreds of bits of shadows that disappear into the night.
Two.
Suddenly, she recognizes this order, as if remembering the sound of an old nickname.
Next: the pink pixie. This time, when they extend their staff to her, she balks away — but it makes no difference. They too blast painfully into the dark night.
The rest follow. Whamon, trying to secure her into his chambers. Leomon, in a blow she could only imagine. But it's the great green murmuring mass coming her way that forces her to flee for shore.
Instantly, she knows: this is no island. it isn't debris. It is hundreds of Numemon, her name still hanging on their lip.
She's seen this once, and she can't bear to watch it again. She swims faster than her legs have ever swam before, eyes shut against the salty spray and all that fall behind her.
Barely into the sea shelf, she raises her head to catch a breath.
And then she sees them: thousands of children, corralled like cattle under the towering crooks of the convention center. But the worst of it isn't their piercing stares — which she feels from miles away — but a tiny creature standing in front of them all.
It is so small, Hikari almost misses in the shadows, until it leaps playfully towards her. A fluffy little digimon, ears eased, tail light in the air, looking much like her own digimon.
From the shore, the feline smiles at Hikari and extends a welcoming paw to the girl.
Meicoomon.
She freezes. Her mind blanks as she loses all senses.
She isn't sure if a wave came to swallow her then. All she knows is dark and black, and the weight of a thousand shadows peering at her from the darkness.
She isn't sure how she washed up on the shore, but she is certain she recognizes the voice that pulls her back into consciousness. Lying on the sand, she hears his familiar call on her name, and allows herself a moment of comfort — only a moment, until her eyes snap open at its implications.
No, not Takeru-kun.
She has to run, before he reaches her, reaches for her. She shoots up in a dizzy haze to find which way to go.
She has a few meters on him, but her feet catch each other and she stumbles into the slipping sand. She makes for another sprint, but it's too late. His hand catches hers. She shuts her eyes and her ears brace for the impact, the soul-piercing explosion.
But after a while, all she hears is the steadiness of his voice, as he says: "The gate is the other way, Hikari-chan."
She holds the silence a few minutes more, lest she turn only to watch him shatter into a thousand pieces. Once she has held it long enough, she asks "What gate?"
"The gate. To our world, back to waking," he responds.
That's right. This is only a nightmare. It isn't real. She just has to wake up.
She turns slowly to face him, eyes locked shut. When she hears nothing but the waves, she opens them to meet his comforting blue eyes.
"Where?" she asks.
"At the base of Big Sight, by a statue of a Bakumon," he replies. "We could go together," he adds with a reassuring smile.
The convention center, with a thousand captive children.
Takeru sees her eyes widen in terror, and feels her hand tense in his, so he says, "Don't worry. It's only us."
Instinct tells her to flee, to run away from this nightmare, and all nightmares she knows will come — but his hand is the firmest thing she's ever felt in this world, and for this alone, she will trust him.
She nods and they make their way towards the convention center.
To get to the gate, they climb up the bay to reach the Odaiba streets. The typically clear path is now blocked by a massive thicket, offering no way but through.
The route is so dense that the pair lock their hands tight, to keep from losing each other in the darkness. Takeru clears the way with his other hand.
Occasionally a branch snaps back and he instinctively recoils.
"Are you alright?" Hikari asks.
He checks the site of impact to find no injury. "Yeah. Don't worry, it's just a dream, after all," he assures her.
"Look, we're almost there," he continues, pointing to the hefty landmark ahead. With some effort to peer through the trees, Hikari could see it too: a single statue of a Bakumon, sitting at the center of the convention center.
"Say, Takeru-kun—" she starts. He stops and turns to look at her.
"How did you know about the gate?"
He studies her puzzled face for a second. "Someone might have told me," he returns with a gleam in his eyes.
When he sees the questioning expression on her face he moves along. She isn't sure that he's answered her question, but for now she can only follow.
He couldn't yet tell her how he really knows.
For him, it starts with Angemon. He watches his digimon die a thousand deaths, in sacrifice, infected, in a hundred frightening ways. Each time he tries to stop it, to watch him a little closer or hold him a bit tighter— but it always ends the same: shouting at the top of Infinity Mountain, or falling on his knees at the Tokyo Big Sight, wishing for time to turn on itself.
And each time, she comes to pull him up, and light the way.
That is how he knows about the gate.
They are about to step into the cover of the convention center. Takeru holds back a final branch for Hikari to pass.
"I guess this is 'good night'," she says, entering the clearing.
"Or good riddance," he replies, and they share a laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Tomorrow they will find themselves in the safety of beds and wonder why they had even worried. After all, it is only a nightmare, and as with all nightmares, one may always simply awake, easily escape, then forget, blinking into the light of a new day.
It is this comfort they have fallen into when the world rejects them.
The wind howls and grows into a wild tornado. They call out to each other as Hikari is taken by a gust that threatens to seize her into its vortex. She's a few feet off the ground before Takeru catches her by the hand.
With all his weight, he tries to anchor both their bodies against the cyclone, but his shoes start to slip against the smooth ceramic tile. Squinting against the gale, he could hardly catch Hikari's pleading eyes.
"Let go or you'll get caught too," she begs, trying to break free from his grasp.
"No, I'll never let go," he shouts back, only tightening his hold.
Acceding to their wish, the wind tows them both into its furious flurry. The last thing they see is the uncertainty in each other's eyes, as the wind takes them where it will.
a/n: this fic was a little different and honestly a lot more difficult to write, because of its themes and also all the research it requires. i just hope i could do even a few of those some justice
this is for Tumblr's Takari Week 2021, for 3 of the week's prompts