Title: What The Digital World Is For||Chapter: Escape
Pairing: Ken x Daisuke/Daisuke x Ken
Chapters: 4-5||Words: 6,064||Total: 24,622
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Summary: The Digital World is made up of data from Earth. Humans have a lot of data about...
Iori clung onto Digmon's back as his partner spun deeper and deeper into the earth. They had to stay close to the barrier so he'd have some idea of how far it descended, but they couldn't go too fast either. He didn't want Digmon's drill to get damaged on the barrier, or if the ground suddenly turned to a harder kind of rock.
He'd learned a little more about rocks since partnering with a Digimon who could drill through them. He wasn't a geology expert by any means, but simple logic dictated that some rocks were harder than others and it would not be a good idea to try to work through some of them.
He wondered at times if Digmon could drill through diamond. It wasn't as if there were diamonds casually scattered about so he could find out, but he wondered anyway.
Of course, in the Digital World, one might actually find carelessly dropped diamonds. He'd have to keep the thought in mind.
He wasn't certain of how far down they'd gone, only that there hadn't been any sign of the Kaiser's enslaved Digimon down here. He felt no need to complain about that. They needed to find Daisuke, not waste their time fighting other Digimon.
So focused was he on watching for Digimon that when the barrier suddenly vanished and Digmon tumbled forward into a small tunnel, Iori almost fell off of his partner's back.
"What's this?" He looked around nervously, D-3 and D-Terminal held close to himself. "Are you all right, Digmon?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," the large Digimon said. He looked all around as well. "I think this is an old Drimogemon tunnel. They leave these things all over the place sometimes."
Iori nodded; he trusted his partner to know this kind of thing. "So where did the barrier go?"
"It just vanished." Digmon moved forward a few steps, feeling forward cautiously. "I think we might've found the way through!"
Iori joined him, taking careful steps until they passed where the barrier had been up above. "You might be right." He flipped open his D-Terminal and sent up a quick message telling the others what had happened. He stared off into the darkness, trying to work out some kind of a plan. He wasn't the best at this, but someone had to do it now. There could still be the Kaiser's slaves to deal with, either here or up top, and just because they'd seen Daisuke's D-Terminal didn't mean he was still in the area.
Where else would he be? What's over there that the Kaiser didn't want us to see? Every day in this war there were more questions. Iori didn't mind questions themselves, but the way they had to struggle and risk their lives for the answers bothered him more than he wanted to admit at times.
Why did people like Ken have to exist anyway? Ones who spent their lives trying to hurt other people, not caring about anything but what they wanted? He'd never understood that. He didn't want to understand it. It made not a speck of sense to him.
He would have to think about it another day. Today was for rescuing Daisuke and then going home for dinner.
Daisuke's lips were warmer than Ken had thought they would be. He'd not given much thought to how warm they would be, but upon reflection, they should've been cold and resisting. Not that the other was yielding to him by any means at all. Daisuke refused to give in to the kiss and kept wiggling his head this way and that.
Ken settled one hand behind Daisuke's head and held him in place. He wasn't done yet! He wasn't going to let go until he was.
All thought of research and humiliating Daisuke with whatever the results of the aroma's effect were vanished out of his mind, replaced only by the complete and utter desire to remain where he was, kissing Daisuke. A soft song of desire whispered through him, not at a point where he couldn't resist, but strong and sure and slowly rising with each passing moment.
He liked kissing Daisuke. The realization crept up on him, as inevitable as sunrise. He'd never kissed anyone before in his life, save for a few mild pecks from his mother when he was much younger, and those didn't count. This was something else altogether. Something stronger and richer and deeper than he'd ever thought of before.
Yes. Yes, he would take Daisuke to the fortress, where no one else could ever find him, and he would keep Daisuke there. No one else needed to see him ever again anyway. There wouldn't be anyone who could take care of Daisuke's needs like he could anyway.
"Kaiser!" The voice rang out throughout the valley, and the Kaiser would've ignored it if Daisuke hadn't started to struggle even harder underneath his lips. "Kaiser, let him go!"
He lifted his head away from Daisuke, turning to see Lightdramon struggling against the Devidramon that still held him down. "Quiet, you." He wanted to get back to kissing Daisuke and perhaps get him back to the fortress. He didn't need to deal with an annoying pest of a Digimon trying to interfere with that.
"Listen to him!" Daisuke snapped, drawing in a quick, sharp breath of his own. "I am really not interested in you like that!"
Ken turned back to Daisuke, a frown forming. "Excuse me?" He could not have heard that. He refused to have heard that. How dare Daisuke even say anything like that in the first place!
"You heard me!" Daisuke tried to head-butt him but Ken simply moved a step to the side to get out of the way. "Let me out of here, let Lighdramon out, and we'll call it even, okay?"
Something seemed utterly off in all of this. Ken shook his head, though it was more to try to clear it than anything else. He'd never felt anything like this before and he wasn't certain of how to deal with it. Surely taking Daisuke to the fortress and putting a Spiral on Lighdramon would work well enough? It would clear away all of the doubts and confusion that they all seemed afflicted with.
And yet...yet something in the back of his mind, or more precisely in the back of his neck, seemed to scream against it. He reached around to rub it absently, trying to get his thoughts in a proper order.
"No. No, I don't want to let you go." He was sure on that, no matter what. Both the pain in his neck and the vague fog in his mind agreed on that. Daisuke shouldn't be released. What the pain and the fog disagreed on was why. The pain said he was an enemy and should be punished. The fog said he was Ken's and no one needed to see him ever again.
Ken shook his head harder, though nothing seemed to come of that. Perhaps if he kissed Daisuke again. His neck disagreed. His lips said yes.
For the moment, Ken decided to listen to his lips.
One by one the Chosen made their way through the tunnel, keeping an eye out for any sort of guards set by the Kaiser. There didn't seem to be any sign of any, but that could never be certain, not when he had one of his grand master plans in effect.
"Should we split up once we get on the other side?" Miyako wanted to know, peering ahead into the darkness. None of them had quite expected it to be this hard to see through. At least there weren't any holes. None that they'd found, at any rate. She took that as the blessing it was.
"Probably not. We're better as a group, and Ken probably has all kinds of Digimon watching out for him now." Takeru moved forward at a careful pace, D-3 in one hand, Patamon on his head, ready to armor evolve at a moment's notice. Hikari did the same thing, though not with carrying Tailmon on her head. It was best to be prepared. They'd all had too much experience with the Kaiser not to be.
"Can we start going up yet?" Miyako asked, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. She'd never known how much she disliked enclosed tunnels like this until she ended up in them. She wanted air and light and lots of room to move around in. Especially that last part, and as soon as she could possibly get it.
Iori looked around; he couldn't see in the dark himself, but he had a rough sort of idea of where they were, based off what he'd seen above. "I think we're almost there. Ready, Digmon?"
Digmon raised his drills, ready for action. "Just give the word!"
It only took another few moments before Iori raised one hand and pointed to the soil above them. "There!"
Everyone backed up to avoid getting the remains of the digging falling on them. Miyako worked her way to the side, hoping for some glimpse of sunlight. She could feel Hawkmon leaning against her side and smiled a little. He disliked this as much as she did, she knew. They were built for the skies, not for the underground. But soon enough they'd be up where they belonged, and the Kaiser would pay for making them put up with this. It didn't matter if he'd done it on purpose or not. She needed someone to smack for this, and he was the best option she had.
From far above a sudden beam of sunlight broke through, or Digmon broke through and the light fell through the hole. Miyako didn't care about the particulars, only that she could see the sky if she tilted her head the right way and her heartbeat sped up at the glistening sight.
"Let's get out of here," she muttered to Hawkmon. She took enough steps back so that he had room to evolve and fly upwards. Digmon had at least made certain the tunnel was wide enough for that, since there wasn't any other way for the flying Digimon to get out except through – flying.
With their partners on their backs, Holsmon, Pegasmon, and Nefertimon all soared upwards and circled outwards once they were free of the tunnel, looking for those elusive signs of where their enemy might be. And found nothing at all.
"Well, we're pretty much where we were, just on the other side," Hikari said as she reached down to pick up Daisuke's D-Terminal. "Let's check for footprints this way."
On this side, it seemed that such marks were a little easier to find. A half-mark here, a faint hint of a scent that Nefertimon's nose caught and Pegasmon's confirmed, a thread of Daisuke's distinctive clothing caught on a bush there...
"Looks like he came from this way." Takeru stared down the trail. None of them could hear anything other than the sound of water, and that unnerved everyone.
Without another word, they headed down the trail, no one certain of what they might find, and everyone certain of what they didn't want to find: clear and irrefutable evidence that the Kaiser had made off with their friend in some fashion that they couldn't follow.
The trail led alongside of the mountains, widening out to what appeared to be the center of the valley, with the stream running a short distance away, and several trees and bushes scattered here and there, all of them bearing blossoms similar to the ones they'd seen on the other side of the barrier. The ones here appeared to be larger and better formed than those, however, and the aroma filled the air even more intently. "Anyone have a handkerchief? That stuff's strong enough to knock someone out just by standing here," Takeru said, pressing his hand to his mouth. He hadn't felt the effect the way the others had, but he didn't like what he'd seen it do to them. They didn't need this kind of distraction while they were trying to pull off a rescue mission.
"Sorry," Hikari said as she shook her head. "Maybe we should start packing those with our D-3s?"
"Might not be a bad idea. Who knows if Ken wants to try using this stuff on a regular basis," Takeru opined. For now all they could do was forge their way through the fragrance and hope for the best.
Daisuke wanted to get out of there so much that he didn't think the words had been invented yet to describe how much he wanted it. Ken just kept on kissing him! His hands hadn't gone anywhere that Daisuke didn't want them, except one holding his head in place. Other than that, it wasn't...well...he didn't want to call it nice, but as unwanted kisses went, he'd heard of worse ones.
He stomped one foot on the ground and tried to yank his head away again. There wasn't much else he could do, not with being chained here the way that he was, but he at least wanted to make it known that he was not going along with this willingly by any means.
Ken didn't seem inclined to move any time soon, his lips covering Daisuke's, tongue tracing along Daisuke's lips now and then, clearly so engrossed in what he was doing that he paid almost no attention to anything else.
What is wrong with him? This wasn't like anything Daisuke had ever seen of the Kaiser. And as strange as it was, if it came down to kissing him or fighting him, Daisuke thought maybe kissing him wouldn't be all that bad, so long as fighting him didn't happen as well. Though he would've preferred that the kissing not happen while he was chained up, because that put a spin on it that he did not want at all.
Ken didn't seem to see it that way, though. He hadn't talked a great deal about what he wanted to do, other than continue to kiss Daisuke, but Daisuke got the impression that he would kiss him and continue to fight the others, and that wasn't what Daisuke wanted at all.
He managed to wiggle his head around enough to see where Lighdramon still struggled against the DeviDramon. These two were pretty large and bulky even for their kind, more than enough to keep his partner squashed on the ground. Ken hadn't done more than make a few vague threats to the effect of putting a Spiral on Lighdramon, but then got distracted by kissing Daisuke again.
Frankly, Daisuke would kiss Ken every day if it meant that his partner wasn't going to get one of those things on him.
Ken pulled his head back, staring down at Daisuke with that half-sleepy, half-intense gaze that he'd had ever since this kissing had started. "We're going back to the fortress," he said at last, and Daisuke's stomach twisted into knots.
"Why there?" He had to find some way to get them to stay here. The others were coming; they had to be, and he intended to be here when they arrived. "What's wrong with here?"
"Too many chances your friends are going to find us." Ken's gaze sharpened briefly. Daisuke didn't like that at all. It looked as if some of Ken's intelligence hadn't been replaced by the burning desire to kiss Daisuke after all.
He told himself he wasn't disappointed by that. And he wasn't.
Mostly.
Ken started to reach around him, and their lips came closer together again, and perhaps there was some kind of a magnetic effect, because once again they were kissing, and Daisuke wondered if he could get used to this.
"Hey!" Miyako's voice echoed faintly off the surrounding mountains and Daisuke pulled himself away even harder, breathing in sharply.
Ken looked far more annoyed than he did startled, slowly turning to where the Chosen Children stood, every one of them looking at least twice as annoyed as Daisuke himself felt.
"Do you mind? You're interrupting something I find quite enjoyable."
Daisuke shook his head until he couldn't understand why it didn't fall off his neck. "What took you guys so long?" He wondered if his mom would be upset if he invited them all over to dinner. Or if he wanted an advance on his allowance so he could take them out to eat somewhere. Anywhere, anything, just to say 'thanks' for getting there and interrupting. And anywhere or anything so long as it wasn't in the Digital World with the Digimon Kaiser.
"We had to dig around a while," Takeru said, staring at the Kaiser. "What are you doing?"
"If you can't guess, then I might just have to show you again."
Daisuke barely had time to hear and understand what Ken said before the Kaiser tilted his head up again and rested their lips against one another. Ken's tongue prodded at his lips again, trying to get into his mouth, and Daisuke sealed his lips as hard as he could, shaking his head more, feet scrambling on the slick grass and stones underneath him as he tried to get some kind of leverage, enough to fight back even more than he had.
"Yeah, I think we've seen enough," Miyako snapped. "Holsmon, get him!"
Daisuke couldn't be certain if that was anger or envy in her voice and now wasn't at all the time to ask. Instead he pulled harder at the cuffs, despite knowing they weren't going to break. "Could someone get me out of these?" Now that his friends were there, he didn't want to think about anything else except going home and using up all the toothpaste they had in the apartment.
"Don't even think about it!" Ken's fingers pressed suddenly against Daisuke's neck and he glared at the Digimon as they drew closer. "What makes any of you think I'm just going to let him go without a fight?"
"If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!" Lighdramon shouted, trying harder and harder to heave up his DeviDramon captors. "But let it be a fair fight!"
Ken's lips twisted. "Why would I want something like that?" He pulled his whip from his belt and cracked it sharply. From various hiding places in the valley there rose a multitude of Digimon, sporting Rings and Spirals.
Daisuke groaned, not certain if he was more bothered by the fact that they were there at all or the fact they'd been there while Ken was – his mind jerked away from the concept of 'making out'. While Ken had been...maybe he should figure this out another day.
Right. Getting out of there. And the sooner the better.
The battle was already joining, the Digimon of the Chosen fighting the Kaiser's Digimon. Lighdramon snapped and snarled at the DeviDramon holding him down, and Daisuke squirmed harder, adrenaline surging through his veins. If he could get out of here and if Lighdramon could switch back to V-mon, then he could evolve him to FlaDramon, and that would be a lot more firepower on their side.
He liked that thought. He liked it better because it involved him getting out of there.
Ken, however, appeared to have other plans, or at least was still bent on continuing the ones that he'd already made. He pressed one hand against Daisuke's shoulder, pinning him to the pole so he couldn't move. "Stay still," he ordered absently, starting to reach around for the cuffs once more.
Daisuke started to open his mouth, then closed it again, a sudden thought sparking in his mind. He's going to take the cuffs off. I can get away then. It was the best chance he had. Better than that, it was the only chance he had.
He kept himself tense. There wasn't anyway he wouldn't be otherwise, so he had to hope it would pass unnoticed. He could feel Ken so close to him, a long and lean presence that sent his head spinning more than he truly wanted to admit.
I didn't want him to kiss me. I don't want him to kiss me. He had to keep those thoughts clearly in his mind. He didn't know what had gotten into Ken, but he knew how he felt about all of this. It wasn't going to change either. Ken was the enemy. So long as Ken was the enemy...
The cuffs fell away. Daisuke moved his arms apart just a little, a tingling in his shoulders from the lack of blood flow. Ken's hands rested there for a few seconds, and it took those few seconds for Daisuke to realize that Ken was actually supporting him, making certain that he didn't fall.
He almost didn't move. He almost stayed where he was, letting Ken do whatever it was he had in mind.
Then he saw Lighdramon straining still, and the rocks crushed underneath his partner's feet, and the DeviDramon and the Rings on them, and he knew that he couldn't.
Ken was stronger than he was by a great deal, as well as faster. Daisuke knew that very well. He'd experienced that strength and speed on more than one occasion. But he still took the chance, ducking down and pulling away from Ken, pelting away as fast as he could get his still shaky legs to move.
He's going to catch me. He's going to catch me and take me away to his fortress. Daisuke was the Child of Courage, but even he couldn't fight off the fear of never seeing his friends again. Not right away. He moved faster and faster, hearing Ken's footsteps speeding far too close to him. He could almost feel the hot breath on his neck, and were those Ken's hands brushing against his back?
He jumped forward. Anything to get just a few more breaths away from Ken. He wasn't certain if he really did feel those hands or not, but he thought he did, and that gave him the impetuous that he wanted.
Rock scraped against his cheek as he landed face first against them, realizing in that same moment that Ken's whip had just wrapped around his ankles, sending him crashing downward. He shuddered, breathing hard, and started to push himself back up. At any moment he expected to feel Ken pushing him down.
"That's enough!" Takeru crashed down in front of Daisuke, glaring at the Kaiser as he drew closer, and reached out to help his friend to his feet. "Ken, you're not thinking clearly!"
"I doubt I've ever thought more clearly at all. Get away from him." Ken still kept a grip on his whip, and thus a grip on Daisuke. Daisuke yanked as hard as he could, a tiny fraction of tension relaxing as the whip fell away from his ankle. He'd had more than enough of being chained up in ways he couldn't change.
"These flowers are affecting you! Is there any other reason you'd kiss Daisuke?" Miyako snapped. Daisuke flinched a trifle at that, hardly aware of it as he did it, but said nothing at all to the contrary. She hadn't meant it like that. Besides, it was true. Why would Ken want to kiss him if something wasn't making him do it?
Ken barely glanced at either Miyako or Takeru. All of his attention focused on Daisuke. "If you don't want your Digimon to have a shiny new decoration, then get up and get over here."
Daisuke shook his head even as he brushed himself off and rubbed the side of his face where the rocks scraped. "No, Ken." He wasn't going to give in like this. He refused to give in at all. "You're not going to put a Ring on Lighdramon, and I'm not going to go with you, either."
Ken's eyes narrowed and his whip slithered around his feet as his arm twitched a fraction. He drew in a breath and turned toward his DeviDramon.
Daisuke didn't give him time to say anything else. "Lighdramon! De-evolve!"
Of all the unplanned plans that Daisuke had ever planned in his entire life, this was probably the riskiest. And he didn't care. He was willing to bet everything on it working, and he knew he was doing just that.
The DeviDramon stared in shock as Lighdramon shrank down, becoming V-mon once again. One of them started to reach for him, but V-mon darted forward, away from their imprisoning grip, and slammed hard against Daisuke's leg.
"Are you all right?" V-mon and Daisuke asked each other in unison. Daisuke's lips quirked up.
"I'm about to be a lot better. We both are." He started to reach inside of his jacket for his D-Terminal and blinked when he realized it wasn't there. "Uh-oh."
Ken's laugh echoed off the rocks. "Did you forget something, Daisuke?" He didn't come any closer. Daisuke wasn't certain if that was because of Takeru standing between them or if he just was too arrogant to think he had to. "You know what you need to do. Now get over here."
"Not a chance." Daisuke backed away from the DeviDramon, V-mon staying near him. He couldn't remember how far it was to the barrier, but he knew that had to be where he'd dropped his D-Terminal. "Think you can catch me?"
"Easily." Ken bared his teeth in something that wasn't even close to a smile, even if it vaguely resembled one. "Perhaps the question should be do you think you can run away from me."
"Not a problem." Running from Ken was easy. Staying away was the hard part.
Another voice broke in before Daisuke could start running. "Or you could do whatever it was you were trying to do before." From up above where Nefertimon hovered, Hikari leaned over the side and casually dropped Daisuke's D-Terminal into his hands. "I found it once we got on this side of the barrier."
Daisuke's eyes widened and he grinned. "Thanks, Hikari-chan!" Did he hear teeth grinding somewhere? It kind of sounded like that. He didn't think about it very much, though. Instead, he flipped open the D-Terminal and turned toward V-mon. "Ready for this?"
"Always!"
The glimmering light of evolution surrounded V-mon and a heartbeat later, FlaDramon stood there, banging his fists together and ready to do battle. His first targets were the two DeviDramon who'd kept him pinned down while Ken tasted Daisuke's lips over and over again.
Just the thought of it made Daisuke rub his mouth and long for the toothpaste all over again. And he knew he would have to tell the others something. They'd seen it happen; he couldn't brush it off. They would have questions that he had only a few answers to, and most of them very unsatisfying and annoying.
Still, they'd said something about the flowers being responsible? That kind of worked with what Ken had been saying. Daisuke hoped someone could give him some real answers that would make actual sense and not give him a headache trying to piece it all together.
"How dare you?" Ken growled, still with his whip in hand, preparing to raise it at a moment's notice. "What makes you think you can get away with this?"
"Because we are," Takeru said simply. "And you'll thank us once you're thinking like yourself again."
"At least as much like yourself as you ever do. I mean, your normal evil self, not..." Miyako blinked a few times, then shrugged. "Whatever, you don't go around kissing us and we don't kiss you and you know that as much as we do."
Ken ignored her, his attention focusing on Daisuke, as laser-sharp and painful as it always was. "Watch yourself, Motomiya Daisuke. You won't always have them to watch your back."
Daisuke refused to look at him, spending his attention on enjoying the sight of FlaDramon trouncing the DeviDramon and shattering their Rings. That didn't mean that he didn't hear him, but he tried not to react. This was all because of some stupid flowers. As soon as that was out of Ken's system, then everything would be back to normal. And the sooner, the better.
He didn't watch as Ken called an AirDramon and soared off majestically into the sky, his dignity as surely wrapped around him as his cloak was. He paid only minimal attention as the other Digimon finished their battles and the now freed enemies fled the valley as quickly as they could.
"Whoa, glad that's over with!" Miyako declared, rubbing her forehead. "Are we ready to go home? I could use a serious nap right about now."
"Sure," Hikari replied, though she was looking more at Daisuke than at Miyako just now. "Daisuke-kun?"
Daisuke turned toward her, blinking and smiling just a little. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Let's get on home."
She came a little closer, worry in her eyes. "Are you all right? The Kaiser, he didn't hurt you or anything, did he?"
"What?" Daisuke blinked, rubbing his scraped cheek a little. "No, not really. I mean, this is nothing." He did not want to think about someone else's lips on his own or the feeling of those fingers against his skin.
"That's not really what she meant." Takeru turned to look at him, as concerned as Hikari was. "We saw what was going on when we got here."
Daisuke drew in a sharp breath and lifted his head up high. "You guys said that was because of those flowers, right?" All of them nodded to some degree or other. "That's all that it was, then. Just him being stupid because of that."
"But what about you?" Iori asked, peering at him with curiosity glimmering in his green eyes. "Didn't they affect you?"
"Nope." Daisuke shrugged, as confused about that as he'd been since it started to sink in that Ken wanted something in particular. "That really messed with Ken's head, too. I don't know what he was trying to do, but it didn't do a thing to me."
More looks were exchanged, then Takeru shrugged. "Come on, we need to get moving and get out of here."
No one even wanted to argue the point. All they did was make sure everyone had everything that was theirs and then headed wearily for the nearest exit.
Ken watched as the Chosen vanished one by one through the television set just outside of the valley. He should've destroyed that one when he'd had the chance as well. He hadn't envisioned his plan failing the way that it had, and he still couldn't figure out how it had.
He touched his lips with the tips of his fingers. There was quite a lot he hadn't figured out about what happened this time either. Now that he had some distance, he realized that like it or not, the blond had been right. The aroma of the flowers had affected him, and every instinct he owned had focused itself on Motomiya Daisuke.
Why him? Why not one of the others? He would've expected his attention to fixate on one of the female Chosen, if any of them. That was what this whole pollen, aroma, whatever it was, was about, wasn't it? And yet he had only thought of his enemy, neatly trussed up so he couldn't escape, and with a tantalizing set of lips for him to sip from.
Foolishness. He determined to set another blockade up there, this time to make certain that neither he nor any of the Chosen could get in there. This was the kind of weakness that they would love to exploit, and he would have nothing of it.
He was the Digimon Kaiser. He did not give in to weak human emotions or desires. He had no idea of how Motomiya Daisuke had managed to avoid such base desires, but he wouldn't let it distract him any longer. An interesting diversion this had been and nothing more. He would not allow it to be anything more.
He turned off the monitors and rose to his feet. He needed to find more Digimon slaves to replace the ones lost in this loathsome venture. That was all he needed to worry himself about now, and forever.
Though he did decide one little message needed to be sent, just to make something perfectly clear.
Everyone settled down in the computer room once they'd arrived back through the portal. Koushirou had a file open on his screen with all kinds of data on it.
"I did some research while you were gone," he said, tapping it with the tip of one finger. "While there isn't as much information as I would like on that valley, I did discover a few things. First and foremost, it's probably a place we shouldn't go to without a very good friend." A light shade of red touched his cheeks. "It has certain effects on humans once they reach a certain stage in life."
Miyako grumbled, trying not to glare at Daisuke as she did. "Yeah, I think we saw some of that."
Daisuke fidgeted. He didn't even try to look at anyone and really wanted to get up and go home more than he wanted anything else. Briefings were normally boring; this one bid fair to be a nightmare. "I think we can guess what happens. What I want to know is why didn't it happen to me?"
"Did you really want it to?" Takeru asked, a little more curiosity than Daisuke thought the question really deserved in his voice.
"No!" Daisuke shook his head as hard as he could. It had been bad enough with Ken being affected. If it had happened to him as well...no. Just no!
Koushirou cleared his throat, staring at the information instead of them. "Actually, now that you bring it up, I uncovered something about that as well." Now he had everyone's attention, including Daisuke's. "It seems that while most people are affected to some degree or other, there are a very few Digimon and humans who aren't. They react to the aroma as if it were nothing more than that: a lovely fragrance. From what I can tell, Daisuke, you are one of those rare immune people."
Dead silence fell. It was broken only when Daisuke swallowed and managed to ask, "How rare?"
"In all of Japan, I would presume you could find perhaps one or two others. Perhaps." Koushirou leaned back in his chair. "As I said, it's best if no one goes there again. I suspect that once his head clears, the Kaiser will feel much the same."
Daisuke wasn't going to argue that point, no matter who brought it up. He wanted it to be like that. He wanted to be able to stand against Ken and not have to worry about anyone bringing this up again.
He got to his feet, picking up Chibimon. "I'm going on home. See you guys tomorrow." He didn't want to say it, but he wanted to spend some time by himself, to think this all through and try to figure out exactly what he was thinking of in the first place.
He could feel their eyes following him out the door and tried not to think about it. They were probably wondering all kinds of things about him. He didn't let it worry him. They couldn't possibly be calling him the kinds of names that he was calling himself.
Daisuke had almost reached his apartment building when his D-terminal buzzed to alert him of a new e-mail message. Wondering which of his friends it was and what they could want right now, he pulled it out, Chibimon peering over his shoulder in equal curiosity.
The moment he realized what it said and who it was from, Daisuke first paled, then flushed a trifle. He breathed in hard, trying to figure out if he should reply or not, and what he would say if he did.
The message read quite simply, It never happened, Motomiya. There was no signature. There wasn't any kind of indication of who sent it, but he knew anyway. No one else could have. No one else would have.
He drew in a breath. Really, there was only one thing to say, and he typed it quickly. What never happened?
There was no reply. Daisuke went inside.
To Be Continued