A/N: This chapter may be less action-packed than what's to come, but I'm sure it'll still come out nicely. Even if most of it is just "Oikawa shows his digimon around an art gallery and tells a story".

PS: I hope the characterization is accurate.

The cave entrance was actually a tunnel; this tunnel led to another part of the grotto. It was much mistier than the other part, and had far more rocks than plants. In the middle of this grotto lay a large museum-like building, looking as pristine as if it had just been built yesterday.

The museum had a number of dim hallways inside, and Oikawa was walking down one of these hallways. Arukenimon and Mummymon were walking after him, with Datirimon sitting on the latter's shoulder to avoid getting lost or stepped on, and they were all listening to Oikawa as he told the most recent part of his story. The former two were especially interested, as this part of the story concerned what happened to him right after they were killed.

"...and so, to make up for everything I had done, I wished to heal the Digital World. My body became a swarm of butterflies; I just recently learned to take this form, but I can't hold it for very long."

Arukenimon blinked. "Huh..."

Mummymon looked at Oikawa. "So that's why you're a shade..."

Oikawa stopped in front of a door. "But I'm sure you're all wondering why I brought you here. Follow me through this door, and I'll explain."

He took hold of the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open, and the group of four walked in.

"Whoa..." Datirimon's eyes widened as he and the others looked around; they were in a room filled with a multitude of paintings, particularly on the left and middle walls. The right wall, however, only had a few paintings.

Oikawa looked at the others. "This room tells the story of my life."

"Is that what all the paintings are for?"

"That's right, Datirimon." Oikawa walked up to the first picture on the left wall, which the others looked at. In this picture, a woman was lying in a hospital bed and holding a baby wrapped in a blue blanket, and a man was standing nearby. A plaque underneath the picture read "July 17, 1969", which did not go without notice from Mummymon.

"Hey, boss, is that date your birthday?"

Oikawa nodded. "You may have already realized this, but this is a picture of the day I was born."

"What was it like?" Datirimon asked.

"Now that, I don't remember. Humans tend to have very few memories of when they were babies; they don't really remember anything until they're around five years old." He walked past several paintings of his early life until he came to the next major painting, a six-year-old version of himself wearing nice clothes and standing near a building. "This was my first day of school. When I started school, my life really began to change."

Datirimon gave him a confused look. "How'd it change?"

"For humans, school is often the first time they meet other people their age." Oikawa looked at the ceiling. "I did meet other children...but I couldn't identify with them. Either they weren't interested in anything I was interested in, or they just didn't want to talk to me. I did once meet a fellow student who shared my interests and wanted to talk to me, but he and his family moved away before I could get to know him."

Mummymon groaned. "That's sad...so what did you do?"

"I focused on my studies instead. Even if some of the adults in my life thought I wasn't being very social, I still behaved in class and did well on my assignments." He started walking again, past a few pictures of his early school days. "Eventually, however, I did make an actual friend."

He stopped in front of the third major painting. It was him, at around eight years old, standing with a boy about his age, both looking as happy as two close childhood friends could be.

"Who's that, Yukio?"

"His name was Hiroki Hida." At this point, Oikawa's voice had taken on a nostalgic tone. "He was never afraid to stand up for his friends, and he and I shared many interests. Even if I was having a bad day, he would always be there to listen to me and help me feel better. And of course, I would help him in return. The two of us were virtually inseparable."

He moved on to the next painting, which showed him and Hiroki playing video games together. "Then it happened one day: we were playing video games, when we discovered something that, at the time, seemed unbelievable. We had discovered the Digital World!"

Datirimon nodded. "And that's when we first met each other!"

Mummymon raised his hand. "Did Hiroki have a partner, too?"

"I'm fairly certain he did, but I can't remember what kind of digimon it was. Anyway, from that day on, Hiroki and I vowed that we were going to visit the Digital World one day." He sighed. "Of course, his father thought the whole thing was absolutely ludicrous, and we were forbidden from talking about it. But we still held onto our dream, no matter what he said."

He continued down the wall, and the pictures began showing him and Hiroki as teenagers, then adults. "We went down separate roads as we grew up. He became a police officer, while I became a computer programmer. He became a husband and eventually a father, while I never so much as considered the idea of romance. I focused on fulfilling our dream; since I now understood several of the mechanics of computers, I was more intent than ever on getting us to the Digital World."

As he reached the corner, he stopped. "One day, shortly after my thirtieth birthday, he told me he was going to America to help protect a political figure. He said that when he came back, we would try to go to the Digital World."

Datirimon began to look concerned. "So, what happened?"

Oikawa put his hands behind his back and looked down; his voice became much more distant. "There is no other way I can say this..." He looked back at the others. "My life became a living hell."

"Oh, no..." Datirimon's eyes widened.

Now, Oikawa turned towards the middle wall. The first painting was a black-and-white picture of him sitting slumped against a wall; next to the painting was a newspaper clipping. "Arukenimon, would you read what the headline on that clipping says?"

Arukenimon walked up to the clipping and read the headline out loud. "Hiroki Hida killed in assassination attempt."

Datirimon gasped.

Oikawa's eyes returned to the ceiling. "It was like a knife in my heart. I was hoping it was just a nightmare...but it wasn't. My best friend was dead."

"And he didn't come back?"

Oikawa shook his head. "Humans don't come back, Datirimon. I'm here because of the circumstances of my death, and Arukenimon and Mummymon came back because they're part digimon. But usually, when a human dies, they're gone forever."

"They don't come back? Not even as ghosts?"

"Humans don't know if ghosts exist. Some believe in them, but it isn't considered valid science."

Datirimon looked more confused. "So, where do they go?"

"No one knows where their souls go, but their bodies are left behind." Oikawa started walking again. "Hiroki's remains were being sent back on a plane, so he could be buried in his homeland. But around that time, there was...something going on. It's all a blur to me, but I looked in the sky, and I saw the Digital World."

The next picture was of him holding up Hiroki's picture. "I was so amazed, but at the same time, I was so upset, since Hiroki wasn't here to share this experience with me. The world no one believed us about was right there! I could see it with my own eyes! Why did he have to die right before this happened?"

He turned towards the others. "But soon, I heard a voice. It was someone asking me if I wanted to go to the Digital World. At the time, I wasn't thinking of whether or not Hiroki would have wanted me to do this. My only thought was of how desperate I was to achieve my childhood dream, especially since I now had indisputable proof of its existence. So I accepted this offer."

With that, he led them to the next painting, which was a picture of him standing with a dark look on his face. A shadow was behind him, against the white wall, and even though it was clearly coming from him, it was not his shadow; rather, the shadow appeared to be that of a caped figure.

"Hiroki Hida was dead. And in that moment, as far as I was concerned, Yukio Oikawa was dead as well. I still answered to that name, but from then on, I was not the same man I used to be. This figure, who I now know was named Myotismon, took over my body, and I was merely a vessel he could use to enact his own wishes."

He looked straight at Arukenimon and Mummymon. "And one of the first things he had me do was create new life to do our bidding."

"I still don't know how you did that, boss..." Mummymon looked at Arukenimon, who simply shrugged.

"It's extremely complicated. But somehow, I managed to combine some data from the Digital World with my own DNA, and this led to the creation of new organisms that could be both digimon and human." He continued walking. "Of course, my first several attempts ended in failure; even the hardiest ones only lasted a few minutes before dying."

He stopped in front of the next painting. "And then Mummymon was born."

The painting showed Mummymon in his digimon form (a black-clawed mummy with a purple bandana on his head) sitting on the floor of a somewhat-dark room and taking Oikawa's hand in his own.

"I remember that..." Mummymon stared at the painting.

With a nod, Oikawa continued his story. "At first, I feared Mummymon wouldn't last any longer than the other digimon I created. Even when he broke the previous lifespan record, I still had my doubts. But as minutes turned into hours without any sign of him getting weaker, I began wondering if I had succeeded this time. When I woke up the next morning, and he was still alive, I knew I had done something right. Thus, I began teaching Mummymon everything he needed to know."

He glanced at the next painting. "But Myotismon told me that Mummymon wouldn't be able to get us through this on his own, and that I needed to create another hybrid. After I made some adjustments to my methods, I tried creating one more digimon, and that led to Arukenimon's birth."

The painting he was looking at was similar to the previous one, only this time, it was Arukenimon in her digimon form (a red spider with a humanoid top half) standing upright and staring at Oikawa.

"Once Arukenimon had learned everything she needed, I decided to pair her up with Mummymon and send them on some simple missions together to see how well they worked as a team." He gave the duo a knowing smile. "And I'm sure they still remember how it was the first time."

Arukenimon nodded. "I remember getting more and more frustrated with Mummymon every minute. I mean, how hard is it to follow a simple order without getting distracted?"

"Well, I couldn't help but admire the way you did things." Mummymon stared off into space. "You knew exactly what you wanted to do and how you were going to do it, you never got distracted...I wanted to be more like you, but I didn't know how!"

"Don't get distracted, maybe?"

"But that's like-"

"Anyway..." Oikawa's voice hadn't changed in tone, but Arukenimon and Mummymon could still tell that it was time for them to drop their argument. "Shall I continue?"

The two nodded.

"Thank you." Once more, Oikawa proceeded down the wall. He told stories of the Dark Spores, and of the corruption of Ken Ichijouji, and of BlackWarGreymon, and of the Destiny Stones, and how the Digidestined would always try to stop them. At this point, the stories were mostly for Datirimon's benefit, since Arukenimon and Mummymon already had firsthand knowledge of the vast majority of these events.

Finally, Oikawa reached the last painting on the wall. Arukenimon and Mummymon visibly shuddered at the sight of it; it depicted the moment where MaloMyotismon made himself known.

Datirimon looked at Mummymon. "Is this what you were telling me about earlier?"

"Yes." Mummymon tried to stop the tears from forming again.

"Don't worry. You two came back, and Myotismon won't come back after what the Digidestined did. It's gonna be okay."

Mummymon gently smiled. "I'll try to remember that."

"Now, then..." Oikawa directed his digimon towards the third wall. Unlike the other two walls, this one had just a few paintings. "This wall depicts my current life as a guardian spirit. Since my transformation is still fairly recent, there are currently only a few paintings here."

Three paintings were arranged vertically on the wall. The first painting depicted Oikawa's transformation into the swarm of butterflies, while the second showed how his first flight healed the Digital World. What caught Datirimon's eye was the third painting, clearly just added earlier that day; it depicted the butterflies carrying him and the eggs through the sky.

When Arukenimon noticed the painting, she too was perplexed. "Are those our eggs?"

"That's right. Elecmon from Primary Village kept them secure until I decided the time was right for you two to return."

"Wait...what do you mean, 'the time was right'?" Just give us a straight answer, Oikawa!

"Follow me outside, and I'll explain." Oikawa walked through the doorway, and the others followed him.

As he led them through the dim hallways once more, the depths of his mind were in turmoil. Since he was a guardian spirit now, this most likely meant he was immortal. While he was happy to have finally achieved his dream of seeing the Digital World, it still felt bittersweet, and for a very good reason.

Hiroki wasn't here.

When he was younger, Oikawa wasn't sure if the afterlife was a reality, or just a myth. Sure, he believed in the digital dimension, but other dimensions? However, when Hiroki died, Oikawa had decided right then and there that there had to be an afterlife; it wouldn't be fair for someone as great as Hiroki to just...die. Even as he worked towards achieving their dream, Oikawa still thought of every day as being just one less day until he and Hiroki would be reunited. But since he was most likely immortal now, he realized, he'd probably never get to reunite with Hiroki in the afterlife.

He quietly sighed. How wonderful it would be to see Hiroki again, even if just one last time...

...but then, part of his mind came to an unsettling revelation. In trying to fulfill their childhood dream, he had pretty much sold his soul to the devil, and thus committed some horrible acts just so he could get to the Digital World. He had never stopped to ask himself, would Hiroki have wanted me to do this? Hiroki had always believed in justice above all else; what would he think if he learned about everything his best friend had done in the name of him and their dream?

Oikawa's stomach was in knots as he tried to decide which of the two options was less unpleasant. Fortunately, since he made it to the courtyard's entrance, he no longer felt the need to dwell on these thoughts.

"Are you okay, Yukio?"

"Huh? Oh, yes, I'm fine." Oikawa opened the door to the courtyard. "I was thinking about things."

The four walked out into the courtyard; under the clear night sky lay a small field with grass and flowers, along with some benches. As the digimon took their seats on one of the benches, Oikawa stared up at the sky.

"...I want you three to promise me something."

Mummymon looked confused. "What's that, boss?"

"When Hiroki died, I was so consumed by grief that I allowed myself to fall into darkness. Not once did I think of talking about my feelings with anyone; I just assumed no one would listen to me. But you three have each other; if something horrible happens, you can work together to set things right. And I know you three aren't alone, either; in both this world and the human world, there are beings who will listen to you. So..."

He walked up to them and looked straight at them. "I want you to promise me that no matter what happens, you won't make the same mistakes I made. Can you do that?"

"You can count on us, Yukio!"

"Yes, boss!"

Oikawa looked at Arukenimon. "Can you promise me that, Arukenimon?"

"...Yes." Granted, she mainly said that just to please him; she didn't really like Mummymon and Datirimon, but rather tolerated them.

"Thank you." He walked a little further away, gazing at the stars. "Now, you've all been wondering why I brought you here and told you my story. I'm doing this all for a very good reason."

He turned back towards them. "Datirimon, Arukenimon, Mummymon...it's time for you three to become heroes."

"Heroes?" All three, especially Arukenimon, looked almost dumbstruck.

"Yes. I've detected a great evil gaining power in the Digital World, and it's not in my power to stop it."

Mummymon looked concerned. "But boss, is anyone gonna believe that Arukenimon and I don't want to hurt anyone anymore?"

"Maybe they won't at first. But if you show them that you really mean it, they may realize you're telling the truth."

Suddenly, Oikawa's shade began to fizzle and crackle, almost like bursts of TV static.

"Yukio!" Datirimon gasped. "What's going on?"

"As I said before, I can only hold this form for a limited time." His body, starting with his feet, began turning back into butterflies as he continued. "As long as you three remember everything I told you, you should have little trouble doing what I've asked of you. And always remember that even though you can't change your past, you can change your future. It's never too late..."

The butterflies flew off...

...and then there were three.

Before they could say anything to each other, they heard Oikawa's voice one last time.

We'll meet again someday soon. For now, go through the portal behind you, and you should find yourselves on familiar ground.

They looked behind themselves and noticed that there was indeed a portal. Together, they walked through, and shortly afterwards, they found themselves in front of what appeared to be an enormous house.

"What is this place?" For Datirimon, this was not at all familiar ground.

Arukenimon, however, knew the place in an instant. "This is the Giga House!"

Mummymon nodded. "We must be on Server again..."

Even though Datirimon was still a little confused, he decided not to press the matter further. "So, what should we do now?"

Arukenimon looked out into the distance. "If you ask me, we should find our car again. It'll make it much easier to travel."

"I agree with you, dear!"

Arukenimon rolled her eyes at Mummymon's attempt at flirting.

"That is a good idea..." Datirimon yawned. "...but I'm really sleepy right now. Do you think we can start tomorrow? It's late."

Mummymon stared at the moon, feeling drowsy himself. "Besides, it'll be easier to find the car when it's bright outside."

Try as she might, even Arukenimon couldn't think of any arguments against that logic, so they all agreed to start looking tomorrow.

What the three of them didn't realize was that their opportunity to become heroes would come much sooner than expected.

A/N: Next chapter, we learn more about that evil power Oikawa was talking about.