Hi all... Sorry it was so long since I last updated. Anyway, NOW the story's really beginning... Cheers!

&&&&

A week had already passed since the incident, Kouji was still in the hospital wing – Madam Pomfrey had found out that Kouji was regularly experiencing headaches and couldn't sleep well, something that he had initially refused to tell her so that he could leave the place early. Madam Pomfrey, quite horrified that he was so stubborn, threatened to keep him in there until he was to go back to Japan and was keeping a closer watch on him.

The news had traveled rapidly around the school, despite Dumbledore's efforts to prevent it, and the students' reactions to it had been mixed. Some thought that the Japanese students were just crazy, others started to avoid them, some just dismissed it as some magical accident, and there were others still who thought that Kouji deserved it (mainly Slytherins).

Kouichi started to avoid mixing around in crowds, but most Slytherins treated him even better than before. He was even avoiding Takuya, Zoe and the other Japanese students, although Takuya was making increasingly desperate attempts to catch him alone to talk to him. Draco Malfoy made it easier for Kouichi by accompanying him everywhere, for which he was grateful.

Their Headmaster, Kimaru-san, had been contacted over the incident. He had Apparated immediately to England, and had a rather lenghty meeting with Dumbledore which apparently concluded in nothing. Both of them had tried and failed to get an answer out of Kouichi, who chose the remain silent everytime a teacher was nearby. The matter was still unresolved, but didn't appear to be coming any closer to a solution.

"So you're not going to tell me what happened?"

Kouichi could have been a statue, the way he was sitting so still and silently in his chair. Snape stared calmly at him. Something told him that there was something very out of the ordinary with this boy, but he just couldn't place his finger on it. Kouichi continued to stare at the floor, face expressionless.

"Is there anything that I can help you with?"

Snape could have been better off interrogating a brick wall, the way Kouichi was responding.

"Nothing?"

Even a brick wall would have cracked under the intense stare of Severus Snape. Kouichi just sat there doing absolutely nothing. Anybody who didn't know what was going on would have been bewildered to see the professor suddenly give a start and massage his forehead.

"You may leave."

Snape waited until Kouichi had gone, again without a word. The boy wasn't just good in Occlumency, he was damn skilled at it. Then he frowned. Pulling open a drawer, he took out a silver coin with odd markings around the edges. He tapped it twice with his wand, and the coin started to glow.

"Draco Malfoy, come to see me in my office now," he commanded.

&&&&

Harry, the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, couldn't have been more distracted. Strictly speaking, he wasn't that close to Kouji, but he regularly visited him in the hospital wing along with Ron and Hermione, just to check on how he was doing. He still couldn't figure out what the problem was; all he knew that there was a problem.

He was having the Quidditch tryouts for positions of Keeper and Chasers. To start everything off, he had had everyone trying out to fly around the pitch, to gauge how good they were on broomsticks, and he couldn't help being impressed with the Japanese students. Takuya, Davis and TK were good, with flying styles that he were simply amazed with.

"And how on earth did you do that?" Harry asked Davis, astounded. Davis had just flew around the pitch at top speed, all the time hanging on to his broom upside down.

"Just twist and hang on," Davis said modestly. "Anyway, you should see what Ken can do, he was the one who taught me that."

Harry sighed. "Well then, if he's going to be in the Slytherin team we had better work hard."

It was easy. Harry found that the Japanese students flew so well that he put them all in the team, although he made sure that he found reserves as well, to replace them when they were transferred to their alternate Houses. TK would temporarily take over the position of Keeper from Ron, who had actually chickened out from trying out this year, while Davis and Takuya would be Chasers, alongside Katie Bell.

"Here's to our new team!" Davis shouted, as the new team landed. "We're gonna rule!"

Everyone laughed.

&&&&

Kouichi couldn't remember feeling more confused than this in his entire life. First his mind had gone blank, then when he snapped back to reality he had found Kouji lying on the floor, writhing from a curse that he had cast. Then Draco had dragged him back to their dorm, and made him promise that he wouldn't tell anything to anyone about what actually happened. That had been easy; in the first place he didn't know what happened, and second, he was exactly like Kouji in certain ways – he just didn't tell other people about his problems.

Since that incident, Draco had become very close to him, defending him when other students started to talk about him behind his back, accompanying him almost every minute of the day, and basically becoming his best friend. Although he was grateful for it, he was also puzzled by his actions, but had decided to wait and see how things turned out.

He hadn't dared to go visit Kouji in the hospital wing, with Madam Pomfrey hovering about all the time. According to Draco, Kouji had lied to the school nurse about being fine, which was just so typical of him. Kouichi just couldn't help but feel more worried about him, and somehow Draco knew what he was thinking.

"You want to go visit your brother, don't you? But you don't dare to because Pomfrey's around."

Kouichi looked up from his Potions book and stared at Draco. "How on earth did you know that?"

"Because that's exactly the way I would feel. Now listen. The doors of the hospital wing are locked every night at precisely eleven. Pomfrey goes to bed at midnight, after checking on the patients, if there are any, and organising her potions. If there's a suitable time to break into the place, it'll be after she goes to bed."

"You're asking me to break into the hospital wing?"

"Are you that stupid?"

"If I actually did that sort of thing I would be stupid! If anyone catches me, they'll probably think that I'm there to finish Kouji off-"

"That isn't what you want to do, right?"

"Ha ha ha," Kouichi deadpanned.

"You've only got to watch out for old Filch and his cat, but it'll be easy if he's distracted long enough for you to get up to the hospital wing and back into the dorm. I think that a smashed-up classroom would be good enough, don't you think?"

Kouichi stared even more. Draco was grinning. "Tonight, at one. Don't sleep, will you?"

&&&&

As usual, Kouichi had trouble falling asleep in the dark, and consequently was wide awake when Draco lobbed a pillow at him. Already fully dressed, he crept out into the common room with Draco, who seemed to be perfectly accustomed to sneaking about at night. Already in a lot of trouble over attacking Kouji, Kouichi was rather jumpy, and even Draco sneered at him when a thud broke the silence of the night.

"Come on, must just be the wind. Let's go."

"The wind blowing in the dungeons?" Kouichi questioned, but Draco was already out of the common room, waiting impatiently for him. Still uncertain, Kouichi glanced over his shoulder, ears strained, wand raised.

"Are you coming or not?"

"Fine, fine," Kouichi muttered, going after Draco. But even as they made their way out of the dungeons, Kouichi could have sworn that he had seen a pair of eyes gleaming under a sofa.

&&&&

Wormmon waited until everything was perfectly still again before letting out the breath he had been holding.

"I'm never going out again at night, whatever V-mon says. Nearly got seen… I'm going to get V-mon for it."

&&&&

"Reducto!"

Kouichi stared at what had previously been a neat, perfectly usable classroom. "Was that necessary?"

Draco glared at him. "Time's running out. Get going, or do you want me to be risking my neck for nothing?"

"I'm not so sure about this, Draco. Shouldn't we-"

"Kimura, get your ass up to the hospital wing now!"

Kouichi couldn't help but grin nervously as he took off at full speed. Luck seemed to be on his side, for he met no one along the way. Finally he reached the great doors of the hospital wing. Draco was right. The doors were locked from the inside, and from what he could tell, with a large, old-fashioned catch.

"Alohomora!"

Kouichi winced as the catch swung open with a loud creak. The place was dark, only light coming from a single candle floating near the ceiling. The only occupied bed was right in the middle, its occupant…

"Kouji?"

The look on his brother's face changed instantly. In the near-darkness, it was hard to tell what expression he was wearing.

"Kouichi? You broke into the hospital wing?"

Kouichi smiled nervously. "Apparently, I just did." He approached the bed, not looking directly into his brother's eyes. "I just came to say that I'm sorry."

Kouji's face broke into a small smile. "You broke into the hospital wing just to do that? Isn't that kinda out of the ordinary for you?" Then he turned serious. "I should be the one apologising. I felt that you were ignoring me, and I was angry with you. I should have realised long ago that I'm being too protective of you. You were just mixing around with your own group of friends. I guess I was jealous that you didn't seem to hang around me so much anymore. I'm sorry."

Kouichi looked up. "I guess it's my fault too. I don't know what came over me."

"Dumbledore and Kimaru-san both think that you were under a spell," Kouji said dismissively. "They're investigating into it, so it's not your fault at all. I was provoking you."

For the first time, the twins looked at each other fully in the eye. Then, at precisely the same moment, the two of them broke into broad grins.

"Man, why does Takuya have to be right all the time about us being so stupid?" Kouji gasped, laughing silently.

Kouichi nodded in agreement. "That guy is really a lot smarter than he looks."

"So, how's it going?" Kouji asked, still grinning. Kouichi was the only person Kouji ever smiled at. To Kouichi, it seemed how incredible a smile could transform Kouji's normally serious expression, making him look much younger and cheerful.

"Draco Malfoy helped me to get in here, he's probably running away from Filch at the moment." Kouichi sighed. "I just don't know what's the matter with him, he's a bit odd."

"According to Harry Potter, Draco's a complete jerk," Kouji said with a shrug. "Apparently those two are enemies, can't pass each other in the corridor without quarrelling."

"He's actually quite a nice person, just completely unpredictable," Kouichi added. "What about you? Feeling better? Draco told me that you lied to Pomfrey-"

Kouji scowled, looking rather childish, something that he saved only for his private moments with his twin. "She's treating me like a child, like I can't take care of myself. And it's not headaches that I've been having. I can't explain it, but I have a feeling that it has something to do with the Digiworld. I just have these visions, and when I snap out of them, Pomfrey acts as though I've been to hell and back-"

"Actually that was what the curse was meant to do," Kouichi said rather sheepishly, ashamed.

"No, wait, hear me out. Can you do that again?"

Kouichi stared at him. "You want me to kill you?"

"I said, listen. I just remember arguing with you, and then there was this burst of white light. And it was no ordinary white light, it was Digicode! Then I was in the Digiworld, but it didn't look like the Digiworld we left behind. It was complete chaos, much like the time when the Royal Knights were rampaging about. I think – I'm sure – that something is wrong."

Kouichi stiffened. "Have you told anyone about this?"

Kouji shook his head. "Takuya would have dragged Zoe, JP and Tommy off back to the Shibuya train station to try to go back to the Digiworld, you know how rash he is. I've been thinking a lot about this, which is probably why Pomfrey thinks I can't sleep well at night…"

"And now that you mention it, why are you up now?" Kouichi asked, frowning. "You're a Light element, staying up so late at night isn't natural to you."

"The Digiworld's more important," Kouji said firmly. "I've been thinking, we need to get everyone together to discuss this, it's too risky talking about this in here, when Pomfrey acts like I'm going to die any minute. Then we need to find a way to get back to the Digiworld, fix the problem, and back to Hogwarts before anyone notices anything."

"That's… impossible."

"Precisely. Now you get why I can't sleep at night?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Kouichi sighed. "And one more thing I've found out. Dumbledore's keeping something from us. I found out when I was alone with him."

"You mean like when anyone's using Legilimency against you, and it ends up backfiring because of your Occlumency?"

"Er… Yeah." Kouichi went slightly red. Among all the Elemental students – in fact, all the students in their school, he was the best in Occlumency. Even their Headmaster had acknowledged how good he was at it. Anyone trying to break his mind barrier with Legilimency would end up having their attempt backfiring, and Kouichi would have access to their thoughts instead.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Yes." Kouichi took a deep breath. It had been an internal struggle for him not to do anything about it other than think, but he hadn't been able to face Takuya and the others. Even finding out about it had been a real shock to him.

"Kouichi, what is it?"

"Dumbledore." Kouichi took another deep breath. "Dumbledore knows about the Digiworld."

&&&&

I'm just going to let the chapter end here... Hehe...

Ken