There's a Miskatonic University in Tamers' verse – the Monster Makers' quantum physicist works there, so Yamaki's programs being Lovecraft references is probably more a matter of the series' creator being a fan than Yamaki being a fan, but I like the idea so.
"Terrier Tornado!" Henry's partner yelled, sending his attack right at the grey specter that had swooped in and grabbed Yamaki when he'd started to collapse.
Ignoring the impact of the windstorm attack, the thing paused to grin at them with too many teeth before running off with its prize, rapidly vanishing among the trees beyond the crowd.
"What?" Terriermon asked when the others looked at him. Sure, he'd taken the risk of hitting a human, but, "It's Yamaki. I mean, he's helped us, but still." Yamaki.
"Hey!" Riley objected, shooting the knee-height green-and-cream Digimon a stern look with her hands on her hips.
"I'm saying he can handle it, lady!" Definitely not an ordinary human. "Ow!" Terriermon said as she pulled on one of his ears.
"This isn't good," Henry said. "If that was the D-Reaper and it gets Yamaki to upgrade it…"
"D-Reaper?" Riley demanded, still holding on to Terriermon to keep the Tamers from charging anywhere before they told her what was going on. "Do you know that thing?"
"What did he think he was he doing?" Rika demanded, talking over Riley. "Just offering to make it stronger?!"
"Well, if it really is the D-Reaper that's got him, we're in big trouble," Henry told them grimly. "Most of his programs might have backfired on him, but he definitely is a genius. The D-Reaper is already a threat to the most powerful Digimon." The True Enemy that slaughtered them in ancient times until it vanished… only for the Sovereign to find out that it had just been gathering its strength. No wonder they were so scared: even a single blob of it was terrifying, and when those geysers of the goo that deleted digital entities on contact started to erupt from the ground of the Digital World?
"And what if the guy hasn't changed?" Rika was the one to say it. "What if he only helped us in the Digital World because, I don't know, we were going there to fight Digimon?" Keeping the Digital World's Sovereigns from attaining Calumon's power? Of course Yamaki wouldn't have wanted the boss of the Devas to get an army of Megas that could be turned toward invading the human world!
On the ground where Takato knelt beside her, Jeri made a soft, despairing noise as she started to come around. "Jeri!" Takato called, obviously worried. How had that thing even gotten inside of her - and how had he missed it? No, that was easy enough to figure out - they'd all assumed that any unusual behavior came from the devastation of losing her partner. What had that thing done to her while the rest of them hadn't noticed what was going on?
"Oh, what… It's gone." Jeri sounded almost vaguely disappointed. The D-Reaper was cold, not like Leomon at all, but now she was empty again. It hurt again, without the certainty that everything would be over as soon as she was no longer useful. "I guess it didn't want me, now that it found its real partner." Was she alive because it forgot all about her?
"Its… partner?" Henry asked, incredulous. "I thought only Digimon had partners!"
"Yamaki was acting really weird when the Juggernaut was running," Takato remembered, the hand that wasn't on Jeri's shoulder resting on Guilmon's still-growling head. "Maybe it doesn't need a blue card?"
"Wait, guys, what are we waiting around here for?" Terriermon demanded. "After them!"
That was when they realized that Rika and Renamon were already gone. Impmon too.
"Oh no you don't," Riley told Terriermon, and the others with him. "You're not going anywhere until you tell me what that was. You brought that thing into the real world, but it's our job to deal with it," she said, pulling her cell phone out of her purse with her free hand.
Jumping from roof to roof with a passenger took Kyuubimon's strength: after three jumps it was obvious to both Renamon and her tamer that they needed to pause long enough for her to Digivolve, otherwise they wouldn't have a chance to make up for lost time. "Be careful, Rika."
"I know, you too," Rika said as she grabbed on to the rope Kyuubimon wore. Her old self might have asked 'what are you telling me for? You're the one who's going to be fighting that thing,' unless she evolved into Sakuyamon. Which they would actually probably need to. Unless maybe the thing was weaker in the real world? It wasn't destroying everything it touched here - although it had somehow gotten inside Jeri without destroying her. Rika's eyes narrowed. The Sovereign didn't know it could do more than delete things, or they would have mentioned it. They weren't dealing with something mindless, but something powerful enough even the strongest Digimon didn't think they could win and smart enough to hide what it was capable of.
…maybe they should have gone straight to Biomerging. Wait, could they even Biomerge in the real world? She wasn't data here, but then again Digimon went from data to actual organic molecules when they Bio-Emerged, and it didn't seem to stop them from turning back into data to Digivolve into different molecules. Rika had been converted into data once herself, to go to the Digital World, so the rest of it was probably a matter of willpower and a blue card or whatever. That kind of thing worked for Takato.
They finally caught up with the thing that had taken Yamaki on the roof over Hypnos, where the first Deva had Bio-Emerged. Somehow, she'd known they would: this was one of the places they'd wanted to search for a portal to the Digital World, since that Juggernaut had made a weak point between the worlds. It had used Jeri to get to the human world: did it want to use Yamaki to get back to the Digital World, or to take him back with it? "Over there!"
The grey shape turned its head to look at them without turning its body, and when Kyuubimon jumped over it to block its path forward, hopefully trapping it between them and one of the others whenever any of them got over here, they saw that it was holding its scythe to Yamaki's throat.
Jumping down from Kyuubimon, Rika folded her arms. "You're bluffing, right?" She knew how annoying it was when stuff didn't work the way it should. "Give up your best chance to get fixed in forever? Come on, we both know you're not going to do it."
The program grinned again, and vanished into Yamaki's body in much the same way as it had emerged from Jeri's. Except without going through a pink jello stage, she noticed, eyes narrowing. Already faster, huh?
As the Digimon Queen, Rika had to admit that was well played. It was holding Yamaki hostage: killing one part of the thing wouldn't kill the whole, but if it was inside Yamaki's body, how were they supposed to even attack it? "We still don't have to let you anywhere near a computer, you know."
Eyes that clearly weren't Yamaki's right now opened, and the True Enemy laughed at her. "Haven't you realized the reason I could exist inside my other host, and now my new programmer? Humans are programs, programs which have exceeded their parameters, and I can load myself into the systems you run on. Even destroying his body won't stop my errors from being fixed: I can upload his mind into the Digital World. I came here to find and destroy the light of Digivolution, the reason so many Digimon are exceeding their parameters. Becoming too powerful, taking up too many stolen system resources like the parasites you are," he told Renamon. "Just like you're stealing runtime from that human's system. When you are destroyed, her system will crash just like the Jeri's."
"You're a lot more articulate all of a sudden."
It smiled, and maybe it was having the right number of teeth that made it seem to have at least some normal happiness in there, not just vicious triumph. Not that the predatory edge was absent, oh no. This opponent felt sharp. The True Enemy in the Digital World had been an amorphous, unstoppable, slowly-engulfing mass, but in Yamaki's body it saw her. "Better artificial intelligence allows efficient allocation of resources, allowing a program to make more effective use of those resources without stealing them from other processes."
In other words, the first thing it was making Yamaki do was make it smarter. She'd already noticed that it was faster at shape-shifting and could pick its targets better now. Rika didn't think Yamaki was that dumb, but then, Jeri wouldn't have brought this thing to the human world if she'd been in control. So if it could make him do whatever it wanted? "Are you planning to let him go?"
"Is she," Renamon, "planning to let you go? When she can use your brain to make herself so much more powerful?"
"That's not… Renamon's my partner!" Rika said, outraged.
"It is the same thing. He downloaded me, wanting the power to keep Digimon from intruding into this world, even if neither of us had the capacity to be conscious of it when the Juggernaut initiated. I was also invited into Jeri's system, but she's no programmer." She wasn't strong enough to be useful, other than as access to the capabilities of a human brain. "She doesn't have detailed knowledge of exactly how unprepared this world is for an assault from the Digital World, and what kind of devastation could be achieved through use of appropriate tactics."
"Wait, what? Why are you going to attack us? We're not…" But in its eyes, they were computer programs, and wasn't everyone talking about how humans were overrunning and ruining the rest of the planet?
"Look at this place." He waved at the cityscape. "Isn't it immediately apparent how much of it is dominated by a single type of program, and how few system resources are left over for essential processes that the system requires in order to function? The Digimon also fail to realize that by growing so powerful they can overburden the Digital World, and by posing a threat to humanity they would destroy the Digital World as well, since it can't continue to function without the systems you maintain and could stop maintaining. My new programmer wants to protect humanity. He just didn't realize that right now, humanity is the biggest threat to itself, just like the Digimon's quest for more and more power endangers themselves and the system. Hmm, security is about to get here." The Reaper smirked. "I'm done here, so there isn't any reason not to come along quietly."
"Done?" Rika demanded as Kyuubimon watched with narrowed eyes, knowing that she'd been outmaneuvered, that whatever this thing did was going to be trouble.
She was right.
She dialed her grandmother's phone, "I'm fine, can you pass it over to…" Henry or Takato? Takato could Digivolve to Mega. If she was right about switching back and forth from data to matter or whatever. Henry was smarter, but Takato was generally the first to do all the really weird stuff. "Takato."
That thing had taken out Yamaki's cigarette lighter and was examining it, she saw out of the corner of her eye.
A woman's voice answered the phone as the D-Reaper flicked the lighter, producing a momentary flame.
"Where are you?"
"Top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, where that tiger Deva showed up."
"You're where? Fine, just… stay put. Hand security the phone when they get there, I'll talk to them. Is the director with you?"
"Yeah, but so's that thing. It went into him the way it came out of Jeri. Does Takato think we can Biomerge here? Ugh, nevermind." If Guilmon could evolve to Mega without Biomerging, even if it was a pretty messed-up Mega, Renamon definitely could, and she didn't want that thing overhearing that they might not be able to get past Ultimate.
A door suddenly opened, and out came men in suits with guns. At first they were covering the entire roof, but then they focused on her and Kyuubimon. "Director Yamaki?"
"No," Rika said firmly as the True Enemy smirked and inspected the cuffs of Yamaki's suit. "He's not. I'm supposed to give you the phone."
"By order of Operations Director Riley Ohtori," the voice of the phone supplied. "Yith Protocol."
Rika relayed the message and was gratified to see the agents change aim to start covering Not-Currently-Yamaki too; she didn't want to have to chase it down again. Hypnos had a protocol for their boss getting possessed? Probably a good idea, actually, now that she thought about it - there was that Dark Seed thing in the anime. A genius acting like Digimon weren't real people… Yeah, Hypnos' boss acted the way people under the influence of that thing did even before he got taken over for real. There were also Digimon that could pass for human, like Mummymon and Arukenimon – they weren't normal Digimon, but the True Enemy wasn't a normal anything.
Rika passed over the phone, and asked, "Does anyone have any handcuffs?" They'd only restrain Yamaki's wrists, and the thing could leave his body and do whatever, but the sound of it flicking that lighter was starting to get on her nerves.
"If you wouldn't mind, sir," one of the agents said, quite deferentially but they still weren't going to take no for an answer.
"Hmm… why not?" it wondered, and held out stolen wrists.
Because hopefully that way it couldn't get free to attack someone without leaving Yamaki's body the way it had left Jeri's, and then Renamon could maybe grab Yamaki and get him away quickly while Guilmon and Terriermon kept the thing pinned down, Rika didn't say.
"You said that you'd come quietly," Kyuubimon said, and de-Digivolved into Renamon. That way, she'd be able to maneuver faster once they went inside the building.
"Yes, Deputy Director," the man on the phone said again, and ordered another of the suits to, "Hand Miss Nonaka your cell phone so she can give them more information."
"Thanks," Rika said, glad to hear that someone was being smart, and punched in Takato's number. "Renamon, go with them."
Renamon nodded.
"Deputy Director, Rika Nonaka wants her Wild One to… Treat her as an escort for the prisoner, understood."
Good. They'd better not view that as Renamon turning herself in or something, or try to put handcuffs on her.
Rika waited until the door closed behind them to dial.
"Is this Rika?" a vaguely familiar male voice asked.
Ugh, Takato and Henry had already been asked to hand over their phones? Of all the times for adults to be efficient. "Hand the phone over to Takato, I need to know if he thinks we can still reach Mega here."
"I hope Jeri is going to be okay…" Takato said, glancing back at the door to Hypnos' infirmary. They were going to keep her in there overnight for observation and to see if they could find anything that could help Mr. Yamaki. They had a lot of high-tech equipment, but that made sense when Hypnos was supposed to deal with crazy stuff like Digimon.
They'd already let Kazu, Kenta and Suzy out hours ago – Takato, Henry and Rika had gotten booked for even more scans after explaining about Biomerging.
"I hope she's okay too," Henry agreed. "The rest of us made it out fine, and Suzy's safe, now, but I hope Ryo's doing okay back in the Digital World. It was getting pretty hairy when we left."
"I wonder what he had to talk to the Sovereign about?" Takato wondered.
Rika folded her arms. "I wonder why he wouldn't do it with us there."
"It likely had more to do with his Digimon's desire for strong opponents," Renamon said.
"Right," Rika admitted. "If Cyberdramon went berserk on the Ark, or attacked the Ark, we'd have been in trouble, and in the human world there's no one to fight but weak Digimon." If Cyberdramon went nuts, he'd have ended up tearing apart humans. "Until now, anyway."
Since the True Enemy had followed them home.
Renamon nodded. "I believe he said Cyberdramon was the reason he left the human world." So that Ryo's partner didn't go on a rampage in downtown Tokyo.
"He's probably more useful there than we are here," Rika said, annoyed. She might as well not have reacted in time to chase the thing at all when it had run off with Yamaki, for all the good it had done. "I guess it's time to go home and face the music."
"Didn't she tell you when she interviewed you?" Henry asked. "You were talking to her for awhile."
"Tell me what?"
"Director Ohtori asked everyone who was at the park to stay here for now. Hopefully it's just to sign non-disclosure agreements and make sure that thing didn't jump to anyone else, but..."
"What?" Rika demanded. "They're arresting our families? My mom has contracts! She's probably already in major trouble for taking a day off without a month's notice for yesterday without missing anything else!"
"They're the government," Henry pointed out glumly. "We're lucky they're not hauling our partners away to some lab."
"They can try," Henry's partner said from his shoulder.
Henry didn't seem reassured at all.
"Don't worry, Guilmon," Takato said. "Nothing's going to happen to you. You don't have to be scared while we're here."
"What are you going to do?" Henry asked. "Run away to the Digital World?"
"If the Digital World's still there," Rika added.
"Director Ohtori seems pretty reasonable, but they let Yamaki run this place. Someone must have thought he had the right idea, and then he helped us and ended up getting possessed by something from the network. That's not exactly a very good precedent for being tolerant of Digimon. My dad works here, so I guess I can ask him what he thinks will happen next," Henry said, still looking worried.
The head of security paused and chose his next words carefully. "With all due respect, ma'am, with Director Yamaki under the Yith Protocol, you're the acting Director and the only person with the security codes to fully resume operations." Director Yamaki had tightened the security on Hypnos (even further, that is, given that it had started out as a top-secret system in the first place) after the acting Director assigned by the military activated Juggernaut a third time and was unable to shut it down; the politician in charge of Hypnos' civilian oversight had ultimately had to call Director Yamaki and Operations Director Ohtori back from their unofficial exile to resolve the situation.
Director Yamaki had authorized the Monster Makers and an unusual number of other people to make changes to the system during the effort to recover the children who had gone into the Digital World, but an attack from the Digital World had somehow completely wiped the currently operational version of Hypnos during the transfer procedure. Director Yamaki hadn't given anyone but Operations Director Ohtori authorization to access the backup, since one of the reasons the backup existed was in case someone made stupid changes to the active system, and she was the only person he trusted to not screw up his baby.
The other staff could still start up the backup without either of them, but until that process was complete, Director Ohtori couldn't input the codes to give the Monster Makers, Dr. Onodera and the others the authorization needed to work on the system instead of just with the system again.
Since Wild Ones were attacking Japan and Hypnos was a logical target, the Director had of course taken precautions in case everyone with authorization died, but those codes were in the hands of the civilian oversight. And having to use them would mean letting politicians pick the next Director of Hypnos.
In the middle of a crisis like this, they couldn't afford confirmation hearings for a now-vital (or, more accurately, finally recognized as vital) agency, or the risk that they'd be assigned someone from the military, or with more ambition than knowledge of computer science.
"Riley, you can't go in there," Tally cut in. "What if it grabs you too?"
The Security Director nodded.
"According to the children, a mass of what Shibumi called the D-Reaper hit the representation of the network itself immediately before the Ark started to have trouble," Riley told them. "If we're dealing with a kind of artificial intelligence that can just casually wipe out our system? What do you think this thing can do to civilian systems? We need more information than what the kids got from observing it in the Digital World and secondhand from a brief encounter with one of the Monster Makers, and we need it now." She let out a frustrated sigh. "I hope he had something in mind other than just giving the thing a better target so it would leave that kid alone."
The other two Hypnos staff members looked at each other. "The Director has always taken his responsibilities seriously. This wouldn't be the first time he had to act quickly in response to an urgent situation and decided that… an ill-advised plan was better than doing nothing."
"Riley, I know you're…" Dating him, which from the look in Tally Onodera's eyes meant her co-worker must have taken leave of some percentage of her senses, "but this is Director Yamaki we're talking about."
"No, there's something about what he was baiting it with. You've secured all copies of that recording, right?" she asked him.
He nodded. "No one at Hypnos thinks the Director would possibly betray humanity, but…"
"But that military idiot brought in several more scientists with him, and we held on to them because we needed the personnel." Riley knew. Yamaki'd put her in charge of coordinating the cover-ups, so she'd had to brush up on what she'd been taught when she was hired on at an intelligence agency. "They'll hear him practically offering to upgrade it and…" She wanted to smack herself. "Reprogramming it. Of course. Digimon and the D-Reaper may be able to Bio-Emerge, but they're still programs. He wanted write access, and that thing gave it to him."
"Something must have gone wrong," Tally said. "It's been hours, and it's still in control. It must have enough control to keep him from sabotaging it," or he'd be done already.
"Well, how easy would it be for one of our programmers to sabotage Hypnos without us spotting it and removing their access? Or refusing to implement the update that contained the sabotage attempt, at least. This is a sentient program, Tally. And getting smarter." Riley would take Rika's word for it. "The question is if he's in any condition to be subtle…"
"Hypnos is our first line of defense against invasion from the network. The Director gambling on his ability to work around a network denizen like that…"
"Hypnos is our first line of defense, and this thing sniped us." Riley reminded him. "It took us out from the Digital World while already engaged in combat against the Digimon. The most powerful Digimon in the Digital World didn't think their odds were very good, and the children don't think they had any means of fighting it effectively. The director is reckless, but…" Riley pinched the top of her nose. "I need to talk to it."
"Ma'am…"
"That's an order from the acting Director."
"Director…"
"Riley…" Tally said, and just shook her head because Riley should know why this was a bad idea, so Tally didn't know what to say without insulting her by repeating the obvious.
Riley took a deep breath, lowering her hand. "If there's anything of him in there, and I think there is, then it'll talk to me. If not, then we'll know who's running the show. Then..." She looked at the Security Director. "The D-Reaper has attacked Hypnos and falls under 'out-of-uniform combatant," or spy, "in time of war.' I need you to find me someone who doesn't know anything useful about Hypnos."
Tally blanched.
Hypnos hadn't lost anyone yet – a lot of injuries, but no deaths – but that was because the importance of the cover-up let Yamaki get first pick of the best trainers to develop really good covert tactics for the field teams. Nobody wanted a shoot-out in Tokyo to be done sloppily enough for news of it to get out. So far, the only Wild Ones to even acknowledge the existence of Hypnos were the Devas, and according to the kids they hadn't wanted to have to deal with humans or human opposition. They were searching for something they needed to fight the D-Reaper, and eliminating Hypnos would have wasted time when they didn't know how long they had until the D-Reaper attacked. So they'd secured their passage to and from the Digital World, and tried to intimidate Hypnos into staying out of their way so they wouldn't have to bother dealing with the organization.
An Ultimate like Mahiramon could have batted those helicopters out of the sky if it had actually cared about conquering the world, which would have required eliminating human resistance.
They'd been lucky: was Tally only getting that now? When attack came from the Digital World, Hypnos was the first line of defense and therefore the first logical target.
No, it wasn't Tally she was angry at. Was Riley so angry because it looked like that luck might have finally run out for the Director?
Ugh, this was exactly why people in their position shouldn't date in the chain of command. She knew her judgment was compromised, but who else's judgment was she going to trust? Tally and the Monster Makers were competent at what they did, but...
The Security Director grimaced. "If we execute the relevant portion of the Yith Protocol, it will most likely jump to another host. I'll ask for a volunteer, but I hope it doesn't come to that."
"I hope so too." For several reasons. "Judging from their reports on what happened to the Digital World, we do not want to find out how destructive the D-Reaper is if provoked." Such as by someone trying to attack it in order to… 'free' the programmer it stole. "If anyone can find some way around this program to defang it somehow, it's the Director, but he knows more than anyone else about Hypnos and the global resources that could be applied to dealing with an attack from the Digital World. According to Jeri, it scanned her memories. Mitsuo… Director Yamaki wouldn't want to be used against the world like that. He drew up the Yith Protocol," obvious from the name. Why did he keep naming things after H.P. Lovecraft's mythos? Did he want to jinx everyone? "I know he considered that he would be a priority target." For enemies that wanted to possess or kill-and-replace.
The fact there was… sentiment involved just meant she had to respect his wishes.
They should have broken up or something once the two of them were reinstated at Hypnos. Personal feelings skewed judgment and they'd known all along that they were going to end up at war. The military banned relationships like this with good reason. But it was too important for Riley to leave, she wouldn't just abandon the fight, and everything had just moved too fast for them to have time to play bureaucratic games with the chain of command.
Thank goodness they hadn't found that time, because if Riley had been taken out of the chain of command by assignment to the Monster Makers or something, the next in Hypnos' organizational chart was the Security Director – they were an intelligence agency – and he wasn't any kind of computer scientist. They needed someone who understood the situation enough to come up with plans and execute them, and they did not have time to fill in a newbie right now.
Tally seized the distraction. "Do you think that's what the Director noticed? Maybe it was scanning everyone at the park somehow, and it wanted enough from his head that he noticed it?"
"I hope you're right, Tally."
"You hope I'm right?"
"That's better than Daisy's theory. Look," Riley said. "The Digimon think this thing will exterminate them. They have thousands of Megas now, and we have a handful of children. I haven't liked humanity's odds since I joined this agency. It's not a matter of me putting myself at risk or not. No one is safe. Especially not anyone who works at Hypnos. Normally intelligence analysis agencies aren't on the front lines, especially not the upper ranks because we've got too much classified information in our heads, but Hypnos is the front line, and if you ever thought otherwise then you should have paid attention to the orientation briefings, Tally."
"…It was kind of overdramatic. And, you know, the Director." He took some things so seriously it became hard to take him, and by extension them, seriously.
"Yes, I'm aware we need to rewrite those." At some hypothetical future date where they survived and even found themselves with time to spare. Maybe they could hire someone who did public speaking with no computer or technical writing skills whatsoever so they didn't inevitably get drafted for something important the instant they had the security clearance required to work here? "Tally, you were working with me on this. You know there was nothing stopping a Wild One from Bio-Emerging right there in that room with us." Aside from the fact it was still too small for most of the Devas to fit. "The Director might have Hypnos scrub a lot of things, but our personal data is on some computer somewhere. Our families' personal data is on some computer somewhere, and the Digital World is connected to all computers, not just networked ones. We are all in danger, and the only way to be safe is to find some way to be safe." Find it or program it. "To do that, we need intel. I've noted your objections, but I'm still going in there."
Someone's telling me that what I'm about to do is insanely risky and probably not going to work, I know they're right and I'm about to do it anyway, she thought, walking past them to the door of the conference room they'd pressed into service as a holding cell; the only place in the building that had already been set up to imprison Wild Ones was a lab, and they couldn't risk it letting the D-Reaper into a room with that many important computers and scientists around to be possessed. They just want me to not get myself killed and I'm having a hard time not snapping at them.
Oh dear gods, I'm acting like Yamaki.
It's the job, she told herself. Definitely the job that's cursed.
An Ultimate with a tendency to go berserk in a confined space surrounded by mainly human children and rookies without the HP to survive a stray attack, with the kind of powerful enemy that set him off right there was just asking for the walls of the Ark to get coated in organs before anyone had a chance to react. Ryo didn't want to go back to the human world because he was afraid of that exact thing happening. He was helping the Tamers get safely on board the Ark, and then the anime had him climb on board too when he had absolutely no reason to change his mind and put those kids in danger? It's like the writers just didn't care... oh wait. They didn't.
So I don't consider Ryo not boarding the Ark in this fic a second For Want Of A Nail: I consider it a 'Well duh.'
There was almost a second Adventure character in Tamers: Thank goodness we managed to escape having to watch Tai get character butchered as badly as Ryo was!
The Dobermon thing is an insultingly transparent Deus Angst Machina. If you're going to make the viewers watch a dog die, it had better be something the viewer already knows is especially difficult instead of something that should be absolutely no problem given what the worldbuilding has established.