"You didn't think I could stay away, did you?"
Ken's voice is oily, if detached from the mouth he's speaking with. With that smirk, it's an awfully frightening combination. It's not the little boy playing king, it's the monster wearing his face and it knows their fear. Hikari doesn't tense as she should and it's clear from this thing's (because it's not human on the inside now) that this disappoints him. Though no one is exactly sure what this is.
"No, unfortunately," Hikari says, back to the patient calm again. "You always have been too greedy for your own good. You ought to have stayed a Dark Master and let yourself be recreated. You would have been welcomed. This is neverending hell for you."
"Be recreated and bred for a force of pure good?" Ken sneers and it's the Kaiser's sneer all right. "Only allowed to have who is rightfully mine when the time is right. You can't possibly understand how droll that is." He levels a smile at Takeru, who shifts back in a feeling of curdled fear. It's like Lucemon is looking at him and it makes him more ill than it should. Then he looks at Chibimon, who only snarls, a high pitched noise that is somehow terrifying in its own right. "Don't you hate that, little thing?"
"It's called patience," Chibimon snaps. "All of us have it! We cared enough to wait and wait and fight and you just wanted everything immediately! And you hurt him like that! You didn't deserve him!"
"Well, I got him in the end, I'm afraid." A small laugh. "All mine, I can feel it even in this feeble insect's body. Do you know how much Ken misses him? If you had made him yours, this boy would have been fine."
Chibimon shakes his head. Perhaps Chibimon is a lot wiser than they ever gave him credit for, for he knows it's not that simple. "Daisuke is my partner! Ryo is my friend… and you…" He trembles. "You tried to force him to be yours! You tried to make him the way you wanted him and that's not what a Digimon partner does! A human doesn't do it either! Right Wormmon?"
Wormmon starts and looks up at Chibimon. Takeru feels his legs shake. It's like looking at Tokomon when he turned his back on him, believing PicoDevimon over his partner's honesty. It must have been similar for him, supporting Ken's plans even though he didn't want to, trying to care about him and help him even when he was so fed up, protecting him even though they had just argued.
If Wormmon is like Patamon, and trying to convince Ken to change what he's doing, is Patamon doing the same? Even under the whims of that Spiral, under the influence of this Millenniummon? (The Digimon he forgot, the person he shouldn't have forgotten but… why did he?) But what does he want?
Wormmon swallows. "Ken-chan… because of you, and because of himself, he tried to force me to change… to become stronger, but eventually he gave up. But you… you never gave up and lets me stay as I am even if he doesn't like it. You always pushed Ryo into situations that would force him to fight you, force him to hurt you, force him to kill you! Didn't you ever think that was wrong?"
"How could it be wrong," Millenniummon's earnest puzzlement is so damning somehow. "When I have achieved everything I could ever desire?"
"Except this world." Hikari's voice is completely unaltered by the clear emotional upheaval. "You've never desired this world as much as you've desired him. Do you now?"
Millenniummon smiles. "Yes. Like you've said, I'm greedy."
"And proud," Chibimon mutters.
"As I should be, as a ruler of time and space."