-11-

Taichi watched as Daisuke stood next to Ken and spoke quietly to the other boy, getting no response. They de-digivolved their digimon once they realized Gennai was not coming back and Taichi called Koushiro immediately so they could get together in the office without explaining many details. Koushiro promised he would call the rest of the team so they would be there.

Yamato was looking at the younger two closely, because since they were watching Gennai and hearing his threats, Ken didn't even talk again. They were on the train now to get to Koushiro's even quicker.

"Why did he have to return now? And what the hell is Millenniummon?" Taichi mumbled while looking around at the people on the train. He didn't have energy to actually focus on one thing.

"I don't even know… but look at them, Taichi." Yamato said without taking his eyes away from the younger two "I'm not sure what is happening but… I'm worried"

Taichi made a sound with his throat and looked to the window. He was worried too, but he couldn't let it show. He was the leader and he was slowly gaining Daisuke's trust again, he would do anything to not damage that again. He decided to send a message to Koushiro again, letting him know they were on the way.

"Ken-chan?" Leafmon's voice ran clear in Taichi's ears. He knew Ken never ignored his digimon partner, no matter what. Since that episode where Wormmon died in the digital world and he stopped being the Kaiser, he always made an effort to attend to his digimon's needs. But this time he didn't even turn to look at him. "Ken-chan? Please, what's wrong, Ken-chan?"

Daisuke was looking at Ken like he was going to disappear in any second. Taichi knew Ken's psychologist said that, when he went mute and irresponsive or suddenly turned cold towards his friends, it was a way of protecting himself. It was a form of dissociation, apparently. However, it didn't mean that knowing what it was or how it was called made it less scary. Besides, they always associated those episodes with Ken's dark spore and were afraid someday it would activate again.

The electronic system announced their stop and Daisuke took Ken's arm and basically dragged him with him, Yamato being the first to exit the train and Taichi the last. They were just a couple of buildings away from Koushiro's office. Yamato tried to rush the group inside and kept looking around to see if there was anything following them. Taichi had to say that it was a smart move. Especially because he kept his digivice in his hand and Gabumon by his side.

Taichi remembered the time he was talking with Ken and when he asked that particular question about Daisuke, he had shut down his feelings and acted more like the Kaiser instead. It was terrifying for Daisuke especially, because it usually took a while to get the genius teen out of that flunk.

They took the elevator to Koushiro's office – Taichi with his eyes closed every second of that elevator ride – and saw the redhead waiting for them on the exit of the elevator. "I was waiting for you guys. The rest are on the way, okay? What happened?"

"Uh… we should enter the office just in case. We can see the streets from there" Daisuke said while dragging Ken with him inside the office. Yamato and Taichi just sighed and then moved when Koushiro followed the other two.

"Can someone explain why you are in this state in my office? What is wrong with Ichijouji-kun?"

"Gennai happened" Yamato spat as he moved to see outside the windows, Gabumon by his side.

"Gennai?"

"Yes, we ran into him. Well, more like he ran into Daisuke and Ken and we just crashed his visit" Taichi said and moved to sit opposite the other two on the sofa. "He's back and weirder than ever. He kept calling Ken the Kaiser and he mentioned something or someone called Millenniummon"

"Millenniummon? What kind of digimon is that?" Koushiro moved to the computer and started typing. The electronic voice of the digimon analyzer ran through the office giving him error every time.

"A really bad digimon… a really bad one" Leafmon said while his tail covered his face. Chibimon patted his partner and tried to give him a cuddle even if Leafmon didn't get away from Ken's arms.

"Do you know that digimon, Leafmon?" Koushiro asked intrigued.

"We both do. A really bad digimon…" Chibimon's voice was strained, like he was remembering something awful.

Daisuke was still trying to make Ken look him in the eyes; Taichi had to admit that the boy was determined to snap his best friend out of it. He remembered the conversation he had with Ken the day they disappeared into the Digital World and was amazed that neither of the younger boys could see that they were both crazy for each other.

"Ken… please, talk to me. I can't see you like this. That wasn't you. That was just the avatar of the Kaiser with that freaking lunatic… you need to snap out of it" his voice was a caress but it didn't do anything to snap Ken out of the flunk he was in.

"We need to figure out what is Gennai planning…" Taichi said trying to look at one of the many monitors around Koushiro's desk

"How do you plan to do that?"

"I don't know and I don't care. I don't want to keep waiting for him to make a move. I don't want to live like this. I just want to put an end to all of this!" Taichi grabbed the goggles from his head and smacked them on the desk. Yamato was looking at him like he understood, and in a way, he did.

"We can't rush into thing blindly, Taichi-san. We need to have a plan and coordinate a stable gate to the Digital World so we can start investigating the situation. When the rest of the group gets here, we can all set a schedule to do rounds around the Digital World to track Gennai's activity and set a plan in motion"

"Okay, that sounds all good and everything, but it seems like we don't have a lot of time in our hands, Koushiro" Yamato added sourly.

Koushiro was going to say something else but a growl interrupted them. They all turned to look at Daisuke that somehow managed to grab one of the many laptops that were around the office and was playing with it, a hand grabbing his blue D-3.

"Daisuke, what are you doing?" Taichi asked carefully, the look on Daisuke's eyes was frenzied

"I'm ending this. I'm ending him. Be ready, Chibimon" the little blue dragon had his eyes wide open, staring at his digidestined and at Leafmon.

"Daisuke, that's not safe…" Koushiro wanted to stop him but Daisuke wasn't listening.

"I'm done. That asshole hurt my team. He killed our digimon. He left us in a freaky lab for months! He almost killed my… he almost killed Ken. And now he's back to hurt us some more?! No, I'm not staying here just waiting for it to happen." He finished with the laptop, put it on top of the coffee table and stood up "Digital gate, open" and the laptop displayed the gate with the green light. Just when he was about to raise his D-3 and pointed at it, several things happened at once. Both Yamato and Taichi tried to reach for the laptop; Koushiro stood up and tried to disconnect the internet connection; Chibimon was trying to stop Daisuke by clinging at his arm. But a scream made them all stop, even frenzied Daisuke.

"NO!" Ken was clutching his head, rocking back and forth while sobbing. Leafmon crying by his side, trying to comfort his digidestined "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

"Ken?" Yamato reached for the computer while Taichi tried to understand what was happening now "Ken?"

"Stop! Just stop, please! Stop!" he kept rocking and Daisuke stopped all efforts to open the digital gate, focusing entirely on his best friend "Don't do it. Please don't do it"

Daisuke left his D-3 on the coffee table and came to hug his friend, trying to detangle Ken's hands from his hair "It's okay, Ken. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. We're not doing anything. It's okay"

Yamato brought the laptop to Taichi and he closed it, turning to look at the blonde. Yamato's face was completely closed off. That usually meant that he was thinking everything through, trying to weight all the options. That made him the counterpart of Taichi's 'acting first, thinking later' attitude.

Daisuke was still rocking with Ken, trying to calm him down. At least he wasn't screaming anymore. The younger leader was still whispering the same sentences over and over again. Chibimon was hugging Leafmon that didn't stop crying. Agumon and Gabumon didn't move from their place on the corner by the windows, they were silent since the episode on the street. Koushiro was just looking at all of them, with a hand still on the power switch of the internet connection.

They all waited to see what would happen. Little by little, Ken stopped rocking by himself and the sobbing also had stopped. Daisuke didn't let him go, but Ken looked drained of energy and was slowly relaxing against his friend. Daisuke saw this and started to comb his best friend's hair slowly.

"Are you okay now, Ken-chan? Are you with us?" Daisuke whispered with a sweet voice.

"I'm sorry"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Ken. We're just glad you're okay… that you're back"

"I shouldn't have done that…" Ken whispered and Taichi wanted to speak so badly but Yamato put a hand on his waist, hugging him from behind. Taichi blushed but refrained from speaking.

"It doesn't matter. You're back and that's all that matters right now. Are you feeling fine?"

"I'm tired…" as soon as Ken said that, Daisuke positioned both of them on the sofa. Leaning back and laying down on the sofa without letting him go.

They were all silent, the only sounds around the room were the beeping of the computer monitors and the sudden vibration of Yamato's phone. No one did or said anything else for a while. Taichi thought both Ken and Daisuke had fallen asleep on the sofa because they both had their eyes closed, but Daisuke was still running his hand through Ken's hair rhythmically. Koushiro gave the digimon some bottles of oolong tea and chocolate bars, Gabumon acting like the responsible parent and making both Leafmon and Chibimon eat and drink, Agumon making silly faces at the other two to make them smile.

"It's not going to stop… isn't it?" Ken's voice was soft and timid, like he didn't really have any energy left.

"What, Ken?" Taichi said when Daisuke didn't answer

"This thing with Gennai-san… it's never going to stop"

"Of course it will…" Taichi was awful at reassuring people… well, Yamato was a lot worse but…

"No… it won't. At least until he has what he wants…"

"What does he want, Ken-kun?" Koushiro's question was not well received by Daisuke, giving the redhead a glare.

"Me…" Daisuke's grip tightened "Well, at least something inside me… the spore" they didn't add anything else and Ken continued "He wants it so… he wants to bring him back"

"Who?" Daisuke said

"Millenniummon" Ken whispered and Leafmon dropped his bottle of oolong tea, Gabumon trying to calm the small green digimon down "He wants to resurrect Millenniummon"

"Okay… we're going to file the resurrecting a whatever that is away for the moment… he said something about toys, do you know something about that?" Taichi prodded carefully, knowing that Daisuke was probably going to glare at him too.

"He said once that… I was his toy because the Dark Ocean made me his toy…"

"Okay… that's creepy"

"I guess that means that all those who have been influenced by the Dark Ocean are part of this situation" Koushiro analyzed and started typing on the huge computer.

"What is a Millenniummon?!" Taichi had enough of not knowing anything about that…

Tentomon came buzzing into the office and heard Taichi's question "I can help with that, Taichi-han. Millenniummon was a dark digimon that was supposedly impossible to defeat. He used a sort of different dimension with compressed time to keep an opponent in that subspace for an eternity. He's one of the darkest chapter in all digimon history"

"How do you know that?" Koushiro said while looking at his partner digimon

"Well, when you returned here the first time, I had a lot of time in my hands to do research on ancient digimon and our history. I read about Millenniummon once, but I thought it was a myth"

"It isn't." Ken said from the sofa, his eyes were closed but he was still awake "I… fought him once"

"You what?" Daisuke couldn't help himself. He had to ask and he had to know. Taichi knew the feeling

"Yeah, the memory is really hazy… but I know I'm right… I was with someone else though"

"Ryo-san" Chibimon said, around a mouthful of chocolate

Taichi saw Daisuke ready himself to ask more questions and had to stop him for a moment "We should let Ken rest for a bit. We can continue this conversation later…"

Daisuke gave him a small glare but turned his attention to his friend once more and started humming softly to Ken. Taichi came to the windows and stared at the city. He could feel Yamato standing next to him and he turned to look at his best friend, seeing him with a puzzled expression.

"What? What's the matter?"

"Uh… I'm worried"

"We're not going to let anything hurt Ken or any of the others. We have to keep an eye on Ken and Hikari, especially. Because they are the ones that travelled to the Dark Ocean before…"

"They are not the only ones…"

"Oh you mean Miyako and Takeru? But they only went there to save Hikari and Ken…"

"I meant me…" Taichi stared at his friend with his mouth open wide "I went to the Dark Ocean once, remember?" Taichi just shook his head "When Joe found me, Gabumon had just managed to pull me out of a weird cave-like place, but at the time, I felt like I was underwater and my emotions were out of control. That was right before I joined you to fight Piedmon"

"You… went to the Dark Ocean" Taichi's brain was trying to process the information. Now he didn't only have to worry about Ken, Hikari and Daisuke… but also about Yamato. "Why saying this now?"

"I saw the look on Gennai's face. He wasn't just talking about Ken… I'm sure of it"

"But he could be talking about anyone else!"

"Yeah…" Yamato didn't say anything else and left Taichi's side to go sit in front of the sofa where the younger two were laying down.

Taichi was preoccupied before… but now a cold feeling was installed in his heart… he had so much to lose… they had to find Gennai.