A/N: Next arc is one update away. Here goes! Enjoy and let me know what you think!
1-11
With some help from his father, Yamato limps his way outside. The rest of the Chosen Children turn to him, each with a relieved expression that is cathartic after the quietness of his parents. There are six there.
And the seventh is a gaping hole that simply isn't there.
His breath catches and he looks at Sora, hoping that he's thought wrong. She points up, simply straight up and he follows her finger to look at the sky.
"What the hell is that?" The once cloudy sky is now clear and starry, barring so many upside down mountain ranges and grey ground and wilting trees, among other things. Specks of black that he can't make out are moving in and out of the stripes in view and it hurts his eyes to look at.
"That appeared when VenomVamdemon died," Koushiro replies, for once not engrossed in his charging laptop. "It's the Digital World."
"What?"
Jyou nods. "Koushiro-kun recognized it before the rest of us. It looks older, but, of course, someone as curious as him would know it by." Koushiro flushes, stuttering out modest pleasantries.
"But," Yamato says, still looking at it. "How could this happen?" It doesn't even look like the Digital World now.
"We left that place behind," Sora replies in a voice that sounds weary, edged with guilt. Yamato thinks it's had that tone for as long as they'd been watching this, waiting for him to wake up and help make a decision. A decision about what?
Taichi shifts slowly, the pink blob on his head yawning. "Nee-chan's up there," he says, staring at one of the specks like it would gain the face of the family he missed. "After VenomVamdemon died, she went up there, laughing. She didn't, she didn't look," Taichi pauses, shoulders hunching and torso shaking. "She didn't smile like Onee-chan at all, it was all angry and happy and scared." His fingers reach for his goggles and curl possessively around the strap, as if his nails could rip through it.
Sora steps forward and then back, arms falling to her sides in a subconsciously exaggerated helplessness. The action seems rote, and Yamato ponders how many times she tried to go wipe the kid's tears, only for him to pull away because he doesn't want her.
If he's been standing out here like that for as long as Yamato has been asleep, then it must have been a lot.
"At least she's not dead," he tries to offer weakly and Taichi shoots him a sour frown mixed with tears.
He sniffles, and tries to make it sound tougher than it really is. "But it's not, not her. Onee-chan doesn't laugh like that when people get hurt, o-or taunt people like that. That's what… that's what Vamdemon did… Vamdemon took away my sister!" The fury bubbles in his eyes and it looks like the child wants to hit one of them because all they want to do is comfort and not understand. He is helpless and scared and angry.
So are they, but they aren't little kids who barely know the full story. Even Takeru knows more about Hikari than Taichi does. All Yamato can think is, what do you expect us to do? She went up there, into a messed up Digital World, without them. How can they find her in a world the size of their own.
"Hikari is still Hikari!"
Plotmon's voice is weak and tiny, but there is a kernel of resolve underneath each quaver. "Hikari is still Hikari," she repeats. "And we're going to save her!"