A/N: Written for the Tale in Fragments Challenge, 10 prompts List 1, prompt #07 – pencil, and for the Female Character Appreciation Competition (with Ruki), both on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's in my profile).

Enjoy. :D

Picnic Day
7. Pencil

After a while, Ruki thinks she's had enough of the fair. Still, she's in no hurry to get home and her mother seems to be having fun, so it's all fine. There are some nice attractions she can revisit anyway, like the Stingmon and XV-mon doing a fighting demonstration.

Renamon appears behind her suddenly, and Ruki gives her a questioning look.

'What do you think?' Renamon asks, gesturing at the fighters.

'Interesting,' Ruki muses aloud, 'but that XV-mon is about as graceful as a baseball bat.'

She's made no effort to lower her tone, and the XV-mon hears her. 'You've got as much muscles as a pencil,' he yells back, not in a mean voice per say but goading Ruki nonetheless.

But Ruki has a lot of practise at being goaded at, so she just smirks at him. 'Do I hear a challenge?' she asks. 'But I come as a packaged deal.'

It'll be fun, she thinks, and her mother hasn't gotten a close up view of Sakuyamon yet either. Renamon doesn't say anything, but Ruki by this point knows her all too well. Renamon wouldn't have asked if she didn't mind, and no way was Ruki going to take on a digimon with her human skin.

Though Sakuyamon was probably overkill. Still, it is a sparring match and not a serious fight. She can take it easy.

And she does. She's almost dancing; it's been too long since she's been Sakuyamon, since she and Renamon had been one in both body and soul. Not since the D-Reaper she thinks, and all those other times they'd been fighting for their lives, others' lives, the world…

Now they're just play-fighting, because even after she's stuck her staff outside the ring and slaps rather than kick and punch with her full strength, XV-mon is getting knocked around. Not too dramatically, because she doesn't want to crush his pride so dramatically in a public setting like this one, and she doesn't want to fight hard. It's just…fun, relaxing, except XV-mon is no match for her at all.

He takes it gracefully. He's a good sport if nothing else and Ruki is sure that if Renamon had fought in her Adult form, she'd have been given a run for her money. But they are Sakuyamon now, and even in this world anything seems possible.

She smiles. It's pleasant, feeling on top of a world that isn't crumbling beneath her. Renamon is enjoying it too – and, in the crowd, she spots her mother snapping pictures of her as well. They feel a little warm and awkward suddenly. Her mother waves. They wave shyly back, and her mother takes a few more pictures of them.

Someone else decides they want a fight: this time an Ultimate who seems to know just how strong he expects Sakuyamon to be. Of course, he's probably not taking into account the human factor, Ruki muses, but they – she and Renamon – to stay Sakuyamon a little longer and so she accepts.

She gets a few more challenges after that, and it's a wonderful way to pass the night as her mother drifts off towards other attractions and some sake, always returning for more pictures a few catcalls that make Sakuyamon blush beneath her mask. But none of the fights are terribly challenging: she's dancing, she's still dancing circles around them because she's light years beyond them after fighting the D-reaper like she had.

But then Justimon pops up from somewhere and the familiar annoyance at him leads to a much more gratifying, and tiring, fight. In one sense, it marked the end of that dance: no-one could underestimate Justimon if they'd fought alongside him, and Ruki knows that leaving her staff out of the ring is a disadvantage.

Ryo lets her take it. He's noble if nothing else, and he knows as well as her it will be a slightly unbalanced fight otherwise. He has his pride too, but moreso it is Ruki's pride. Even if she doesn't care as much anymore, she isn't going to give him an advantage to win.

And their sparring match is on a whole other level once it starts. The poor XV-mon Ruki had beaten first watched agape, watched as Sakuyamon lets loose against Justimon and Justimon returns the favour.

Neither of them are sure who's won when they both collapse, breathless, in the centre of the ring, barely holding on to their evolutions.

And they don't bother once they've crawled out of the ring. It's just a perverse sense of pride that won't allow them to devolve while still in it.