Okay, so I'm really sorry that this took so long to write. I had MAJOR writers block, plus I had to finish writing a couple of movie scripts. But now, without further ado, I bring you Letters from the Front Chapter 2.

Letters from the Front

Chapter Two

…we've also heard whispers that the Russians on Sakhalin Island are rebuilding their nuclear facilities. If they do, nowhere in Japan will be safe. Nowhere at all. Don't worry though. I'm here fighting to make sure that never happens. Give my regards to Matt.

Your best friend,

Tai Kamiya

Sora pocketed the letter. She'd read it many times over. It had been exactly two weeks since she received it, and she was yet to hear anything new from Tai. She was worried about him and TK. TK sent letters back every week or so, and they only ever said that he was fine, no word of Tai. and Sora and Matt had figured he was too preoccupied fighting a war to have to worry about where Tai was.

"Stupid Tai," Sora mumbled to herself, as she walked towards the store. Once inside, she noticed how empty it seemed. She walked towards the counter, where a middle-aged woman was standing.

"Still no shipments, Mrs. Inoue?" Sora asked, looking at the emptiness of the store.

"I'm afraid not. My suppliers are 'rationing' everything, and I've heard rumors that they've lost some key sellers in Russian allied countries."

Sora let out an audible sigh.

"My grandmother use to tell me that times were hard like this during the Second World War. We're a small country, and we rely heavily on imports."

"I know, I know, and businesses aren't willing to risk shipping to war zones."

"Which is rather silly, there's no war here. It's all in Hokkaido. I could understand not wanting to ship things into Aiomori, or other northern areas like that, but our navy has done a pretty good job of securing Tokyo Bay."

"I think they're more worried about getting to Tokyo bay," Sora said, as she walked towards a sparsely stocked shelf, and grabbed a few items, "I'm sure you've also heard the reports of Russian submarines being detected by our radar just outside of firing range."

"Yes. Those damned Russians, cutting off our supply lines like that. We're civilians for god's sake!"

"In a democratic country, with elections coming up. I think they're counting on us getting desperate and electing a pro-Russian government."

"You think so? Do you think they'll stop after the election even if we don't elect pro-Russians?"

"We can certainly hope so," Sora said, as she put down the items on the counter.

"Will that be all?" Mrs. Inoue asked, looking at how few items Sora had put on the counter. Sora nodded, and Mrs. Inoue shook her head.

"You poor dear," she said, "how do they expect people to be able to live with such little amounts of everything?"

"Matt and I will manage. At least he was able to stay here instead of fighting the war."

"That's good to hear. But a shame about TK and Tai. I really hope they come back safely."

"So do I, Mrs. Inoue, but at least they're fighting for their country. To be honest, I think Matt was a little disappointed. I know he's relieved to be out of danger, but at the same time I think it's crushing to his ego to know that his younger brother's fighting in the war while he's stuck here."

"Well, it's a good thing he's got a girl like you to take care of him. Here," Mrs. Inoue said as she bagged the groceries, "they're on me."

"Mrs. Inoue, I can't take these from you!"

"Of course you can dear, it's just a little gift from me to you and Matt. Even with business down, I've got more money than you two do. My house is already paid off, I don't have any bills but buying the stuff I sell to worry about. Just take them," Mrs. Inoue said as she put the bag into Sora's reluctant hands.

"Thank you, Mrs. Inoue. I owe you one."

"Don't mention it, dear."

"Say hi to Yolei for me. Where's she going to school?"

"Dartmouth. It's in America. She was lucky enough to get out before the war started."

"Yeah. I almost wish I could have, too. But Japan's my home."

"I agree, but it's nice to know that my daughter's safe."

"It must be. Good luck with business!"

Mrs. Inoue waved as Sora left the store. She looked into the bag. Mrs. Inoue was right. Sora and Matt were struggling to pay their bills, and they needed whatever they could get. Sora didn't even know if she could have afforded the few groceries that Mrs. Inoue had given her. She turned, and looked towards Tokyo. An office building on the mainland was shining in the sunlight. As Sora looked at it, she realized it was the building where Izzy worked. Matt still wouldn't be home for a few hours, and it had been a while since she'd seen Izzy. She began to walk towards the ferry. Ever since the war, the Government had been subsidizing the ferry between Odaiba and Tokyo, to the effect that it was a free ride both ways. The only cost was showing the guard a passport or other piece of identification that proved Japanese citizenship.

After flashing the guard her driver's license, Sora got on board, and took a seat on the ferry. It was a warm, pretty day, and if it had been a year ago, the people on the ferry would all have looked happy. As it was, with a war with Russia so close by and being in the Capitol City, most people looked tense. Sora reached into her pocket, and took out the worn letter.

April 16th

Dear Sora,

Our division has finished training, and we're being sent to serve on the front lines. I had mixed feelings when I found myself in the same division as TK. Hopefully nothing bad happens to him. I wouldn't worry about me too much, but I don't think Kari would ever forgive me if something bad happened to TK under my watch. For the past five nights, none of us have slept for more than a few hours at a time. The noise of artillery overhead is incredible. Our naval batteries have supposedly weakened their defenses, and Colonel Oda tells us that our bombers have gone as far as to hit military bases in Kamchatka. Apparently, the Russian army has no air defense, or anti-air deployed in the area. We also heard rumors about the unlucky few who were chosen to be part of the elite paratrooper core. They attempted to end t…

Sora was interrupted by a ball hitting her in the head, making her drop the letter. It wasn't a hard ball, it was one of those smaller balls that kids love to buy that bounce really high and make a satisfying noise when they hit something. As a result, Sora was not in pain, but was shocked enough to drop her letter. She bent down the pick it up, and saw that the ball was right at her feet. A child of about five or six was standing looking at her, smiling. What looked like the child's mother walked over.

"Sayuri, apologize to the nice lady and ask her for your ball back! I don't know where you picked up such bad manners!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. May I please have my ball back?" The child asked, in a very soft, polite tone of voice. Sora smiled, and handed the child the ball.

"It's okay. It's good to see people smiling."

"Come along now, Sayuri, the ferry's landed."

The child and mother walked away, and Sora picked up the letter. Even if it was simply a child who probably didn't even know that there was a war, Sora found it uplifting to have seen somebody smile a sincere smile. A lot of the time now people only smiled sad sorts of forced smiles. And in fairness, Sora thought, there wasn't much to smile about. But she'd missed people looking happy. And so as she got off the ferry into Tokyo she was still smiling. And for the first time in a while it wasn't a forced smile.

The elevator ride to the floor that Izzy worked on was a long ride. People seemed to be getting on from most floors, and people were getting off on all the floors that nobody was getting on from. After what seemed like forever, and was somewhat wearing on Sora's good mood (though she was still smiling), she reached the thirty-seventh floor, where Izzy worked.

After high school, he'd been able to make it as a developer of technologies, and after the war started nearly every person in the field of technologies in Japan was working on weapons technologies. Izzy was no exception. To Sora's understanding, he developed, built, tested, re-built, and re-tested weapons until they were ready for use by the military. Sora walked through the glass doors of his company's office. Two Japanese soldiers met her there, and aimed guns at her.

"My apologies, ma'am, but we need to search you for weapons of any, and every sort."

Sora spread her arms and legs. There weren't many places that you could go in Tokyo anymore without being searched by soldiers. And while it was an inconvenience, Sora preferred it to Russians being able to blow up locations of importance. The soldiers finished their search and lowered their guns, stepping aside to let her pass.

"You're clear to enter, ma'am."

"Thank you," Sora said, as she walked past them to the receptionist.

"Welcome to Izumi Technologies Incorporated, how may I help you?"

'It's one of these receptionists', Sora though. The kind that pretended to care about people, but you could tell were just as uninterested as the ones who said things like "yeah?" and "what?". Quite frankly, Sora preferred those kinds of receptionists to the ones who pretended to care. At least those receptionists were honest.

"Is Koushiro here?"

"Koushiro…oh, Mr. Izumi! Let's see…" the receptionist checked something on a computer. Sora turned, and through a window could see Izzy sitting at a desk. 'How pretentious', she though.

"He's in his office, may I tell him who's here?"

"Tell him its Sora."

"Sora….?" The receptionists said, looking for a last name.

"Jus tell him its Sora. He'll know who it is."

"If you insist," she said, as she picked up a phone. "Mr. Izumi, a woman named 'Sora' is here to see you. I see sir."

The receptionist hung up the phone. "You can go right in."

Sora walked into the room, as Izzy was putting on a vest. He then put on safety goggles.

"Ready whenever you are," Izzy said.

"Izzy, what's going on?" Sora asked, as the noise of a shotgun filled the room. Izzy fell over back wards on the ground, as Sora grabbed her ears. She turned to look at a man, who was also wearing goggles, with a lot of messy, unkempt hair. It reminded her of Tai…

"Davis, what the hell are you doing?" Sora yelled at him, as Davis put down the shotgun, and lifted the goggles onto his forehead. Izzy rose, and took off the vest, looking it over.

"Well I'll be damned, Davis. Aside from a pain in my back from where I fell, that didn't hurt at all."

"Excellent. I'd say a few more tests, and it'll be good to sell to the military!"

"You guys are testing a product?" Sora asked incredulously, "shouldn't you be using a test dummy for that?"

"Test dummies don't fight wars. People do. So we always make sure it works on real people. I hold myself responsible enough that I wouldn't submit our troops to something I haven't done personally," Izzy said, as he took off the safety glasses. "How've you been, Sora?"

"Seriously? Davis just shot you, and you're this calm?"

"Well, it's not like I didn't know and ask him to shoot me. Plus, as I said, it didn't hurt at all."

"You two are so weird."

"What's weird about it? You want us to send the army untested products?" Davis asked, and he sat down at a desk, looking at the holes in the vest.

"Nevermind," Sora said, with a sigh.

"So what brings you here, Sora?" Izzy asked, as he sat down across the desk from Davis, and gestured to a chair against the wall for Sora. She sat down in it.

"I was bored. I didn't have anything better to do. I just wanted to see how you guys were doing, I suppose."

"Any word from Tai yet?" Davis asked, still looking at the vest.

"No, and TK still hasn't mentioned anything," Sora said, deflatedly.

"Who'd you say his commander was, Colonel Oda?" Izzy asked.

"Yeah. TK and Tai both have the same commander."

"Well, I'll tell you what. Colonel Oda's an acquaintance of mine. I sold her some of our more recent rifles. I have her contact information somewhere. I can ask her for you how Tai's doing and get back to you on it," Izzy said, standing up, and walking to a drawing board which had a drawing of the vest, a cross section of it, and some mathematical equations that Sora couldn't even begin to understand.

"Really?"

"Of course," Izzy said, as he began to sketch the damaged vest, drawing notes and equations on it. "How many shots do you think it can take, Davis?"

"My guess was three before it starts to become a risk."

"Right. I'm sorry Sora, it's not that we're ignoring you, it's just that the Prime-Minister wants this vest finished in a week and we're a bit behind."

"That's fine," Sora said, as she stood up, "what time will you guys finish up?"

"Probably around six or seven," Izzy said, as he walked over, and began looking at the inside of the vest, and the shrapnel in it.

"Do you guys want to come over to me and Matt's place for dinner tonight?"

"Really?" Izzy asked.

"Sure, why not?"

"Well, I'm yet to see your new place," Davis said, "it sounds like a deal."

"And you, Izzy?"

"How could I refuse?"

"Alright. Then I'll aim to have dinner ready around 7:30. I'll see you both then."

Sora walked out of the room, and past the receptionist, who was saying something, but Sora pretended not to hear. It had been too long since she'd seen her friends.

On her way home, Sora stopped by Kari's apartment. Kari lived in the same building as Matt and Sora, just a few floors down. TK's army paycheck that came every other week was enough for the apartment, but Kari still had to work on top of that. Matt and Sora had offered to let her move in with them, but she'd refused. Sora rang the doorbell, and there was no answer. Realizing what time it was, it occurred to Sora that Kari was probably at work. The idea made her realize that she would need to get a full time job soon. She worked part time at her mother's flower store, and for a while it had been enough, but when prices starting going up things got tight for Sora and Matt. Sora took out a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote a note for Kari, inviting her to dinner. Sora then took the elevator upstairs.

She almost didn't notice that mail had arrived. She stopped with the door half-open, and checked the mail. For the past two weeks Sora had been searching the mail for a letter from "Kamiya, Tai." She figured that today would be another disappointment. Instead, she found exactly the letter that she had been looking for. She ran inside, closing the door, and sat down on her couch, opening the letter.

Dear Sora,

I'm sorry it took me so long to respond, but I've just gotten back from the front. You wouldn't believe what happened. Just as we were halfway across the Tsigaru straight…

She put down the letter after reading it over at least three times. She was so glad that Tai was all right. He'd been injured, but at least according to him he was all right now. She was just beginning to drift off to sleep, when…

"Sora, I'm home," Matt's voice called out. She opened her eyes. She had thought she'd been asleep for a few minutes at most. Instead, she saw she'd been asleep for two hours.

"Sora?" Matt called out. Sora got up, and went over to him, and hugged him.

"Your hair's a mess. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. I fell asleep on the couch by accident. A letter from Tai came today."

"Oh thank god," Matt said, "I figured TK would have told us if anything terrible had happened to that guy, but I was starting to get really worried about him."

"You should probably read it."

"Why?"

"He was injured. He's been in a hospital since the landing at Hokkaido two weeks ago."

"You mean…?"

"He's not with TK."

"How could he not be with TK?"

"Matt, he didn't try to get injured, but he…"

"He told me he'd take care of TK. And then what does that idiot do? He gets himself shot!"

"Matt, TK will be fine without Tai. It's not as if TK is fighting Russia all alone just because Tai isn't there."

"Damnit, Tai! You promised! You…" Matt was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

"Who do you think that is?"

"I invited Izzy, Davis, and Kari over for dinner."

"Oh. That's nice."

Sora hugged Matt again, and the doorbell rang again. Sora went to open the door, and saw Izzy and Davis standing at the door.

"Hey, Matt!" Davis said, as he entered.

"Hey Davis," Matt said, slightly overwhelmed by Davis' seemingly boundless energy.

Kari arrived shortly there after, and the five friends sat down to a nice meal together. For a while they all forgot their individual problems that the war had presented them with. Matt even completely forgot that he was mad at Tai. Everything was great, but at one point Sora looked around the table, and couldn't help but think that only five of the twelve digidestined were there. Seven others were missing. Tai and TK were both in Hokkaido, fighting the Russians. Yolei was at school in America, and Cody was in a high school nearby, but Sora didn't know exactly where. Joe was working for the Government, and Mimi was in America. So that was eleven, Sora thought, trying to think of the last digidestined. Ah, yes, Ken, she thought. How could she forget?

It had been a few years since anyone had heard from Ken. Towards the end of High school, Ken and Davis had had a bit of a falling out. All twelve were friends, but they had all grown apart, physically and emotionally. Eventually, it got to a point where connector friends were needed to hold people into the group. Ken hadn't really forged a strong bond with anyone but Davis and Yolei. And then Davis and Yolei had their falling out, and Yolei went to America. And so, it had been awhile since any of the other eleven had seen or heard from Ken. It put a slight damper on Sora's good mood for a while, but she eventually forgot, and had fun that evening. Though she did think to herself towards the end of it that she ought to write Tai a letter…

End of Chapter Two

So again, sorry it took me so long to write, but on the other hand, it's also the longest chapter yet….of the two. Okay, so I just wanted to address a few things. First thing, to all of my Taiora fans out there who know that I've attested to liking Taiora…don't worry, I haven't gone Sorato on you. Just give it time. "All good things come to those who wait." Also, I am a firm believer in Chekov's gun, so I'd suggest you keep details that have attention drawn to them in mind as you continue to read this. Hopefully I'll have chapter 3 up soon, though I know I always say that and fail to deliver, but I swear I'll try extra hard this time. And Chapter 3 will return to Tai and TK. I don't know if I've said this or not yet, but with this story I plan to alternate between the battlefront and the home front, IE between Tai + TK and Sora + Matt.