A/N: Since I've had my PMs turned off for a while…

Black Angel and Ice Prince (and anyone else who might've been thinking the same thing) – Ofanimon touches on it with her little spiels, but the reason the children are winding up with the spirits opposing their canon one is because the Three Angels are targeting their weaknesses and trying to make them stronger overall (ie. if they overcome their weaknesses, they'll be even stronger than just bulking up their strengths). Her understanding after watching possible futures (one of which is Frontier canon up till the end of the Lucemon SM battle) is that someone always winds up dying out of the six Chosen and that (in some of the cases) winds up triggering Susanoomon's evolution which is the miracle that saves their world – so she's trying to find a way around that. So that's why Kouji's the one off on his own, Junpei's stuck in Grumblemon's skin, and the spirits of fire are burning Tomoki (because his element is ice, the complete opposite). Whether and how they get the correct spirits… Well, you'll find out eventually. :) Everyone hasn't even gotten a spirit at this point.

You can probably guess what'll happen next chapter based on that. :) Thanks for all the support so far, and enjoy!

Play of Spirits
Chapter 9 – Echoes of Loneliness

The forest was strange. It was dark no matter how he walked or slept or ate from those odd fruit on the black-barked trees or if he lit a fire to cook them. He learnt his lesson the first time, trying to eat them raw… They tasted remarkably like meat once they were cooked and a different one each time. The first had given him salted pork and that had been especially cruel, but after a few sleeps (because his phone's time display refused to move from 5.50pm and he wasn't wearing a watch and there never seemed to be a sun so he couldn't tell the day) he decided that getting his favourite food on the first day and then never again had been the luck of the draw and nothing more.

And then there was the moss scattered here and there that glowed. It never lasted for long after he picked it up but it was useful for searching caves where their trails didn't reach and caves were a good place to sleep – when they were empty.

And they'd all been empty so far, though some had droppings and he wasn't some sort of nature freak who could tell what sort of animal lived there.

And in the interim he berated himself for getting on that train when he hadn't gotten an answer to a single one of his questions. Really, he'd been a fool and now he was in the middle of nowhere and could not longer convince himself it was a dream. It was too long, too continuous – and too real. He grew hungry. He grew tired. He slept and woke up and slept again and the world changed subtly in between – but not enough to tell him what was day and what was night, or anything more concrete about his location except a dark forest that never seemed to grow bright.

It was one thing, being in his room at night with the streetlight outside trickling through the open window. He didn't remember how old he was when he stuffed the nightlight in a closet and ripped down the curtains and adjusted to that new and lesser level of light, but he'd been doing that for years and sleeping in the caves now, he could barely see the glow from the mosses and they were tiny dots far away like on a microscope slide he couldn't quite get into focus or magnify anymore and he was all the more lethargic in the moments for it and that makes sense. It all made sense. Except where he was and who's done this and why his phone's time wasn't changing when the phone was functional otherwise but out of range. The two most important bits to the phone, really: the ability to tell time and communicate with other people, and both of them were down for the count.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall of the cave. If he counted the days and nights as when he walked and when he slept, then this was the third night. He hadn't seen a single living thing and he couldn't even be a hundred percent sure he was heading in the same direction still – or if he wasn't chasing a mirage.

The only thing in the otherwise black sky: that swirl of purple far away like a galaxy of stars.

It hadn't grown any bigger yet. Any nearer. It could take him weeks to walk all the way there and it could be nothing in the end. Was there anything right under the sun? It changed with the time of day, after all, or rather the time of day changed when the sun moved. Chasing it was a pointless act. Maybe the purple mist-like thing in the sky was an equally pointless thing to chase but at least it was a direction, amidst the trees that all looked the same.

At least the caves were subtly different.

A small comfort, really.

But the silence…

He was in two minds about that. On the one hand, he'd hear something coming from miles away and he'd be prepared. Fortune favoured the prepared, after all. But on the other hand, there wasn't the sound of Hikaru bounding about and barking downstairs, or his father watching television and reading papers on the couch or his step-mother padding around the house or the birds squawking outside… All those background noises he'd taken for granted weren't there. Not even the rustling of trees outside.

He closed his eyes. At least the cave wasn't unbearably cold. Still, it would taking him a while to fall asleep… again. He needed to get used to it, though. If he was going to be travelling for weeks for a way out of this place – and that should teach him. Avoidance had gotten him well and truly lost and he wouldn't have been in that mess to begin with if he could've just gone ahead and faced his step-mother on their anniversary…

And really, like wandering around town and being out until three in the morning last time hadn't taught him.

His frown deepened into a scowl and he shifted about, searching for a more comfortable position – though he'd wind up shifting many more times before sleep finally snatched him away. And maybe the artificial sound of his rumpling clothing was comforting too… in a sense… and keeping him up for longer…

But wait, he wasn't moving now. He could still hear that rustling. And something else too. Softly beating wings.

His eyes shot open. He could see nothing in the dark – no, that wasn't true. Back where the moss was… He could see shadows there. Small shadows that darted in and out of view but shadows nonetheless, unless that was just the sleep clinging at his eyes.

He got up and walked there slowly, hoping whatever it was had a poor a vision in the dark as him and were friendly. But if he had to pick one, he'd take the poor visibility. Friendly was relative, after all, and too flimsy an umbrella to feel safe under.

But they turned out to be bats. Very big and somewhat oddly shaped bats but he couldn't think of another word for them and bats… were technically blind, but had very good sonar detection that rendered the point moot.

But bats were harmless, all in all. So long as they didn't pull at his hair. 'Shoo,' he snapped, and found a stick he could snatch up off the ground of it came to that.

'Shoo,' the bats mimicked back, like an echo. 'Shoo, shoo, shoo –'

'Okay, enough. I'm sorry.' He felt a little ridiculous, apologising to bats, but the social nicety just slipped out of him.'

'Okay, enough, I'm sorry.'

He blinked. They're mimicking me?

The next thought was: Now how do I get them to shut up?

But they seemed to do that themselves, when he didn't give them any new fodder. They simply flew past him… And into the cave.

Lovely. He needed to find another place to sleep, apparently.

And if all they did was mimic, they weren't going to help him find any friendly intelligent life – or the way home.

Still, it could've been a lot worse.

He kept his stick. He should think about making that a proper weapon.

.

Cherubimon stood under the Venus Rose – or on top of it, depending if one referred to the castle or the constellation of stars. Between the castle and the stars was where he was, he supposed, and it was the greatest vantage point from which he could observe the entire Dark Continent.

From here, he could see the lone boy making his way through. And he made the stars flare so only few would cross his path because the natives knew: the natives knew that when the Venus Rose shown brighter than before, it meant some sort of trouble was coming and they should leave. Because the Dark Continent was primarily a sanctuary and a sanctuary was no place for a war to come…

And yet the greatest of all wars was fated to begin right here.

Really, his was the most fragile place in the Digital World. Evil slumbered beneath it, and then deeper still, within the core of the world. That evil touched everything but the path of least resistance was up to him because of the other prisoner…

And not only that, but the spirits who'd searched long and hard for a host but hadn't found them… What caused the great blanket of darkness around the land and what meant only the truly desperate or those searching for inner strength would dear to enter his abode. But that was fine. He didn't rule only the Dark Continent after all and he ruled the beasts of the forest, of the waters, and of the desert with its town of steel and stone as well. In fact, it suited them all to have a sanctuary few dared to cross: only the ones who tried to defeat the demons within their souls or had worse demons on the outside chasing them down.

And the glow of the Venus Rose was their sun and he was telling them that the sanctuary was slowly being undone.

In truth, he had to depend on Ofanimon's words for that, and the prophecies of old, but he was okay of that. He'd spent a lifetime collating all the knowledge of the world. And his life was dictated by that knowledge.

And Ofanimon and Seraphimon and he himself… They all wanted peace for their world – And if they knew the natural path would fail, then they had to force it to change.

Even if they could only stand and watch in this stage of it.

And make sure nothing went out of control, for humans who were frail and brittle without a spirit or digimon companion and even more so when the continent sung to their weaknesses and squashed their strengths…

But he would watch, and make sure the scales didn't tip too far.

.

He probably wound up with even less sleep than normal and that dulled his senses – or maybe it was the days of seeing nothing and no-one that dulled them.

In any case, he was far too close by the time he realised a lion and a bird were fighting. Or two humanoid figures holding swords who wore the faces of a lion and a bird. They could have been masks. Costumes. Or like those odd bats and completely foreign.

But they saw him as well, and the bird lunged. The lion was half a step away and Kouji had to roll out of the way before it tackled the other into the path he'd come from.

They continued their grapple there, the lion shouting at him to run – but how could he just run?

Maybe it was because a part of him was entranced by the swordplay when the swords came back out, even if he only had his stick made into a staff. Even if he knew one of those attacks could easily slip and strike him when trees were falling left and right – and even if he knew the bird had tried to attack him on purpose and the lion… well, who knew what the lion's intentions were.

Still, he wanted to watch. So he went as far back as he dared and hid himself.

Apparently not well enough because, when the clash quietened and the bird flew off, the lion was back again.

'You didn't run.'

Kouji's lips twisted into something like a frown. 'Your swordplay…' It seemed an insult to call it good, suddenly. For the both of them. Nothing like the demonstrations at the dojo. Nothing like the movies were people just hacked at other things. But real swordplay like the kind he'd probably never have cause to learn in this day and age.

The… whatever sort of creature it was shook its head. 'Like the children,' he said. 'When you grow older, you'll learn sense I suppose and flee before you're spellbound in a battle that isn't yours. Especially with a weapon like that.' He cast an unimpressed look at the staff. 'You're a human, I suppose?'

'Are you trying to say you're not?' Kouji asked, once he'd wrapped his head around the question.

'I'm a digimon,' it replied. 'Of the Leomon species, to be precise. Most creatures you encounter in this world will be digimon. Humans are creatures of legend here, for those who know of them.'

'Lovely,' Kouji sighed. 'You wouldn't happen to know how to get back to the human world then, would you?'

The Leomon shook its head. 'Humans only appear in this world when destruction looms in its future. It is bad tidings. It means there's a great destructive force on the move. It means our way of life will be torn apart by war. And yet it also means our salvation is at hand. The peace that comes after the storm. The rebirth… after destruction.'

'Next you're going to say we're the ones who save the world.' Kouji shook his head. 'Don't know how you figure that, when your sword could cut this – ' He hefted his staff. 'In half.' Though he was half the size and far slimmer, so he stood a better chance of slipping through the trees and away.

'There is another legend about ten digimon spirits that only awake to the hearts they choose,' the Leomon continued. 'Some theorise it's only humans who can awaken them, because many a digimon have been destroyed in the process of attempting to awake them, but –'

He was cut off as a screech echoed around them, and then he cursed. 'Karatenmon.'

The bird-like creature flew into view, dual blades out and parried by the Leomon's single blade. 'Go,' Leomon snapped. 'I'll explain the rest another time.'

This time, Kouji did go… In part because he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest of the Leomon's explanations. He dashed quickly through the trees and neither creature followed them – and after a while, he outran the sparks and the noise as well.

And by the time he settled to rest in an empty cave that had only dry droppings (from the odd bats, he supposed) and his swirling thoughts, neither had caught up to him and he'd seen no other living creatures at all.

But what else did he expect? The Leomon gained nothing coming after him to explain things – and if it was a matter of being unable to find him, than good for him. He didn't need otherworldly creatures – if the Leomon was to be believed – chasing after him and mistaking him for collateral, or prey.

In a world where he didn't understand a thing, he really was safer on his own.

And yet a part of him did want that Leomon back. Because he'd spoken more than he usually did with strangers with it. Because that sword was beautiful, and that fight. Because the Leomon knew things about this world and was willing to share, and was willing to leave a duel to talk with him and then call to him to escape at the resumption of it. Because it looked tall and noble like a warrior, like something that belonged in a fairy-tale or a dream and the crow-like creature was the villain that needed to be defeated –

And what was he? The princess that needed rescuing.

But his stick really was no good if he was up against enemies like that.

He had to stay quiet. And careful. And alone.

There was no-one to watch his back. No-one to say it was safe. It was alright. It was just a dream.

No-one to say anything at all.

Heh. Being alone wasn't as cracked up as he was used to it being, was it? And he should've been used to it by now.