Chapter 32: Why the Sand Falls

From the hospital room, the three of us were only able to listen to the sounds of the battle which raged above us. We couldn't really decipher very much from those sounds, and I desperately wished that I could do something to help. Unfortunately, I couldn't even sit up yet without having a stinging pain rip through my stomach. As long as the sounds of battle continued to rage, I continued to hope for everyone's safety. It was when the sounds stopped suddenly that I froze in fear. Could that mean that they've won? Could they have lost? I was desperate for any kind of news about the battle. They had to have won. They just had to.

A knock on the door caused all three of us to turn towards it instantly.

"Hello?" I said cautiously, hoping that it was someone with news about the fight.

"Kari, it's Tai. Can we come in?" the voice outside the door said.

"Of course, Tai," I responded. Perhaps he had seen the battle. At least I hoped he had.

Tai walked in, followed by Matt, Sora, Shark, and their digimon.

"Do you guys know what happened out there?" TK asked immediately.

"Daemon took off when these other kids showed up," Matt said.

"What other kids?" Yolei asked.

"I think one of them is that Michael kid," Tai said.

"Michael," Shark said, catching the name. He spoke in English, despite the obvious futility of it. "That was Michael on Metalseadramon." He looked at the confused faces, thought for a second, and then tried a new approached. He pointed outside, began nodding his head frantically, and said, "Michael, yes, Michael," over and over again until Tai held up his hand, indicating that he got the point.

"Okay, I guess it is Michael then," Tai announced his conclusion.

"So we won the fight?" I asked hopefully.

"I wouldn't really say we won. Daemon left, but not because we really had him beaten," Matt said. Drakamon digivolved to Metalskullhydramon again, but wasn't able to fight Daemon successfully. We just watched from the street and we ran inside as soon as Daemon was gone."

Just then we heard the sound of footsteps, a lot of them, coming down the hallway. The door opened and everyone began streaming into the room. Joe and Izzy were first, followed by Will, Mimi, and all of their digimon. Davis, Cody, and Ken were next along with their digimon. Then the four newcomers came in. I recognized Michael from when Mimi had introduced us a year ago. There were also two girls, who both looked to be about sixteen, and a very small boy who was my age but could have passed for being nine if he needed to. Everyone was completely soaked from the storm.

"Shark, I see you found them alright," Michael said in English, not really looking at the boy.

"The map helped, I guess," Shark said, staring coldly at Michael. "Why'd you show up?"

"We thought you might need help," Michael said. "Should we leave?"

"I don't give a damn what you do," Shark said, still staring Michael down coldly. There was another long silence.

Tai couldn't take not knowing what was happening. "Um, could someone fill in the peanut gallery, please?" he asked in Japanese.

"Will, hasn't told you yet?" Michael replied in Japanese. He looked over at Will, who turned his gaze towards the wall.

"Well, I suppose I can't blame him. I'll explain everything now, if that's alright," Michael said, again in Japanese. He looked toward Will, but Will wouldn't respond. He just kept staring at the wall. We all turned back to Michael and waited for the story.

"It was about three years ago when we were all sucked into the digital world. Will, Shark, Jesse, Ricky, Laura, and myself were all in New York for a major swimming event, and we were on a rooftop and were all dragged in. We managed to survive, though, with the help of the digimon we met. We traveled through the world, trying to find a way back home and defeating evil digimon as we went. I'm sure our adventure wasn't too different from your own, at least until we began the search for the crests."

"I was the first to find a crest, the crest of faith. Shark was second when he found the crest of serenity. Laura then found the crest of empathy, and Jesse found the crest of harmony. Our digimon all managed to reach ultimate level, but we still had to find the last two crests. Eventually we found Ricky's crest of dreams. It was around this time also that we met Daemon for the first time. He talked of shrouding the digital world in darkness, and destroying all forms of life that he deemed unworthy. We saw first hand an example of the darkness he planned for the digital world when right before our eyes he killed off a village of peaceful Woodmon. It scared all of us, and what was even scarier is that we didn't have the power to stand up to him. Then we found Will's crest, the crest of darkness."

"We were stunned when we realized what the crest was. We were all so freaked out by the darkness, and by what we thought the darkness stood for, that we forgot that Will was part of our group. All of our digimon digivolved, and we began to attack him. We thought he had betrayed us, and that he was working with Daemon. We all went after him and Drakamon, except for Shark. Shark held back, despite my please for his help when Drakamon digivolved to Hydramon and then Skullhydramon. Skulhydramon managed to protect Will and flee with him into the forest. We didn't give chase, because we didn't know if we could defeat Skullhydramon. After that happened, Shark decided that he had to do some soul searching, at least that's what he told us. He went into the forest and found Will and Drakamon. Meanwhile, the four of us continued on looking for a way to defeat Daemon. It was by far the darkest time our group ever faced."

"It wasn't long before Daemon learned that we had split, and he attacked us himself. Betamon managed to digivolve all the way to Metalseadramon, but we still couldn't defeat Daemon. That's when Metalskullhydramon showed up again. His Abomination attack managed to catch Daemon off-guard and destroy him. Unfortunately, we were still fools. I ordered Metalseadramon to attack Metalskullhydramon, and they had a ferocious battle. It wasn't until Shark tackled me to the ground and started yelling at me that I realized what was actually happening. The battle stopped before either digimon was seriously hurt."

"With Daemon gone, we had only one goal left, get back home. Shark and Will had found a gate during their travels, but it was far away from us at that point. I'm sorry to say this, but all of us were too embarrassed to try to make peace with Will. Instead, we all just started walking toward the gate. That's when the dark crest first reacted with the dream crest. They caused Daemon to be reborn right in our midst. Luckily, he was weaker than he had been, and he fled. We never heard from him again until just now in the battle outside. At first we were going to go after him, but Will couldn't take it any more. He ran again. Shark didn't go with him this time, and instead just led us to the gate back to the real world. We saw Will the next day at the last day of the swim meet, but none of us could gather the courage to say anything to him. After the competition was over, Will returned to Buffalo, and only Shark heard from him after that, through email. The rest of us didn't now anything about him until we saw him again at the same national swimming competition the next year. I wanted to talk o him, but he did a good job of avoiding me. I saw him at that competition the next two years, but I never could get close enough to talk to him. Then Shark finally told me over the summer that he was moving to Japan. The rest is more all of your story than it is mine."

Michael sighed as he finished. Shark was leaning back against the wall with his head down and his eyes closed. He didn't understand any of the words, but he didn't have to. He knew what Michael was saying.

"So you see, we came here not just to stop Daemon, but to try and find Will again," Michael concluded. He looked around the room, but the boy in question was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did he go?" Sora asked.

"He didn't go out the door," Joe assured us. "I've been leaning on it the entire time."

Then we saw Drakamon, curled up in a corner, apparently ignoring everyone in the room.

"Drakamon, do you know where he went? Tai asked. The digimon was silent. It didn't even acknowledge Tai.

"I know where he went," I said. "He went to the Dark Ocean." Everyone looked at me, and for some reason they all looked surprised.

"What's everyone staring at?" I asked.

"Kari, you're sitting up," Cody answered. I glanced around. I wasn't even aware of it, but I was sitting up, and there was no pain in my stomach.

"It must be the light crest," Izzy said. "It healed her again."

As surprised as I was at this, I didn't want to let it distract me. I looked toward Ken. "Can you please send me to the Dark Ocean, ken?" I asked.

"Why? Kari what are you . . .?"

"I want to talk to Will," I said, cutting him off. "Your D-3 can still open a gate, can't it?"
"I think so," he said. He looked around the room, hoping that someone would object. Perhaps Tai, or TK, or anybody. Finding no one, he resigned himself to trying. "Alright, here goes nothing." He held out his digivice and closed his eyes. The portal slowly began to open around me, and I could feel myself slipping out of the hospital bed and through the rift. The faces in the room faded away, replaced by the dark gray sky and colorless landscape of the Dark Ocean. I was once again on the beach, staring out at the motionless black water. I had only my hospital gown, and no shoes. The sand felt cool beneath my feet, but for some reason I didn't have the sinking dark feeling that I usually had whenever I came here. It was as if I understood the darkness, and so now it couldn't affect me. I recalled the stars, and the tree branch, and the snow and the sky, and I nodded slightly to myself.

There was no pain as I walked along the shore. Apparently Izzy's theory that my crest had healed me was correct. I wandered along the bleak shore, not really sure where I was going, but knowing somehow that I would eventually come upon Will.

I was right. Off in the distance, I could see the lone figure standing, staring out at the endless darkness of the still ocean.

I approached slowly, quietly, hoping that I would know what to tell him when I got there. As I got closer, I could see that there were tears in his eyes, although he had not allowed any to slide down his cheeks yet. I sensed that he knew I was there, and that he wasn't going to say anything unless I did. I turned toward the ocean, and stared out at it with him. I had never noticed how peaceful it looked, sitting there, unmoving, occasionally reflecting fluctuations in the darkened sky.

"Will, can I be your friend?" I asked, turning slowly toward him. He turned to face me. His expression was scared and sad, and he was still struggling to hold the tears up in his eyes as he remembered everything that had happened.

"Will, I just want to be a friend. To forget everything about the past. I don't care about your dark crest or Daemon or Myotismon or anything like that. I just care about you," I told him, staring straight into his eyes.

"I still don't know, Kari," Will said, straining to keep his voice level. "I don't see why all this had to happen. This thing is so terrible; I can't understand why it had to be mine,"

"Will, you can't let the darkness control you. Bad things happen, but they need to happen. If we went through our entire lives never being sad, we would never know how wonderful it really is to be happy. If the sky never got dark at night, we would never be able to see the stars. Don't you see, Will? We have to have darkness in order to be able to see the light. The darkness is a good thing, because it makes us appreciate all that is good in life," I said, almost starting to cry myself.

Will stared into my eyes, and I stared back. Something happened right then, and I don't know just what, but I know that he now understood what the stars and the branch had taught me. His dark crest was still a positive crest, just like all the other crests.

A single tear finally slid down his cheek, his eyes being too full to hold back any longer. It ran down to his chin, hung there for a second, and then dropped down onto the sand, making a tiny little indent. I smiled at him, and through his tear-filled eyes, he smiled back at me. He suddenly embraced me in a tight hug, and he was no longer able to keep himself from sobbing. I returned the hug happily, and we stood there for minutes, just holding onto each other, not wanting the moment to end.

Slowly, he pulled away from me and put his hands on my shoulders. We both smiled as we looking into each other's eyes, wordlessly expressing the thoughts that rushed through our heads. Somehow we slowly drew closer and closer to each other, until our lips met in a warm and indescribably perfect kiss. I'm not sure what exactly had clicked inside of me, but I could feel my blood rushing as my heart seemed to fly up at the incredible sensation. I had never felt anything so exhilarating in my life.

The sound of a wave crashing on the shoreline caused us both to separate and turn to the ocean. The water washed a short ways up the dry sand, and then receded back into the ocean, which immediately returned to its motionless state.