Play of Spirits
Chapter 16: Breezy Village

They crossed into the Forest Kingdom without any further mishaps and Izumi skipped over the fallen branches. This was so much more comfortable than trekking through the dry and empty terrain, or climbing down and back up that ravine. Or sleeping on said terrain. She wished they'd had the chance to pack, at least. She'd have brought a tracksuit instead of a skirt (and thank goodness she'd been wearing sneakers and not loafers or sandles) and a sleeping bag. And her first aid kit… Or maybe not. First aid didn't seem terribly difficult to come by in this world, and her first aid kid back at camp had given her a friend, only to snatch it back again.

'What are you thinking about?' Junpei asked curiously. 'Unless you're trying to tell the trees apart?'

Izumi laughed. 'Maybe I should,' she said. 'What with the spirit of wood and all. But no. I was thinking what I would've packed if I knew we'd be camping in this weird world. Like a sleeping bag.'

'Ah.' He fell silent for a moment. 'Yeah, I double the sleeping bag. And I'd have brought a stash of food too. Nothing like home food, you know. Even if we can eat the stuff here.'

'Yeah…' She sighed. 'We can't cook here, and I miss my father's pasta.'

'Not your mother's cooking?'

'My mother can't cook.'

'That's unusual.' Junpei blinked.

'My mother loves cooking.' Tomoki skipped up to them. 'And her cooking is amazing.'

They both laughed at that. 'Most people say that about their mother's,' Izumi said. 'It's just my mother burns toast and turns pasta into a lump of stuff you couldn't get a fork through…'

'Pasta being a recurring theme?'

'Well, we are half-Italian,' Izumi pointed out. 'And pasta is delicious, you know.'

'I know. Doesn't mean 'tou-san can do anything fancy with it.'

Izumi considered that. 'Maybe my father can give him a few pointers?'

'Don't bother.' Junpei waved a hand. 'He's the type of guy who'll put a pot on the stove and forget about it. 'kaa-san's tired of scrubbing the burnt stuff off.'

Tomoki giggled at that. 'Well, both my parents can cook,' he said. 'Sometimes they cook together.'

'That sounds romantic.'

'Onii-san says so too. He always escapes upstairs, but I like watching them.'

'Watching your parents throw gooey eyes at each other?' Takuya grimaced. 'I'm with your brother on that one.'

'I dunno,' Kouichi said. 'I rather like it.'

They stared at him. He shrugged. 'It would be nice if one of those dates ever developed into something, though.'

Ah, that was right. Kouichi's parents were divorced and his mother was a free agent, so to speak. 'Of course, whoever it was would need a seal of approval from you,' she commented. 'Would you stand for it othwerise?'

'It's more the other way around,' Kouichi admitted. 'Not many people can tolerate a child from another marriage, and that's one thing 'kaa-san has no patience for.' His tone was light, but his facial expression told he wasn't too happy about that. 'But some people are nice. One of them taught me a few games. Shogi, mah-jong… I never got the hang of Go, though.'

Was that an elaboration, or a misdirection? Izumi wondered.

'What happened?' Takuya asked curiously.

'Didn't work out. Not all nice people fall in love, I guess.'

Maybe they were being too nosy, but Kouichi didn't seem as comfortable with this topic as he'd been with the topic of Minamoto Kouji. She supposed how characters in books related to their single parent becoming involved with someone else wasn't always the case. 'Do you want a stepfather?' she asked. And maybe that was inserting foot in mouth, but maybe it wasn't.

'… I do,' Kouichi admitted, after a pause. 'It's lonely. And sometimes it seems like there's too much to manage a family with only us.'

'Like whether your mother should be the disciplinarian or the softie?' Takuya asked. ''kaa-san's definitely the disciplinarian in my case.'

'Onii-san is in mine,' Tomoki decided, after a bit of thought. 'He always says my parents spoil me, but I think he's just jealous because I'm younger so they pay more attention to me.'

Takuya grimaced. 'I think I have to agree with you there.'

Izumi laughed again. Wherever had they gotten to with this conversation? Poor Bokomon and Neemon looked completely mystified with all the talk about human family dynamics.

.

They came across a village: Breezy Village. Izumi sighed happily at the breeze they were known for. It was just a shame nobody built tree-houses… But she could see those being a problem for the Floramon who lived there. Their appendages were hardly appropriate for climbing.

'But there's a big tree in the centre of the Forest Kingdom,' one of the Floramon explained, while serving soup to the travellers. 'With stairs that lead all the way to the top. Seraphimon's castle is up there, and hidden except for those who have permission to ender, but you can go up pretty high even if you don't.'

'The view is wonderful,' said another Floramon. 'You can see the entire Kingdom from there.'

'I'm sure it is,' said Izumi wistfully. 'Way better than that wasteland we were in before.'

The Floramon stared at each other. 'There's green land right up to the Flame Terminal,' said the one who'd explained about the tree. 'Except for the mountain ranges, but those are still ahead.'

'Well, there was nothing green about that wasteland,' Izumi huffed.

'No, they're right,' said Bokomon, flicking through his book. 'I can't believe I didn't notice that earlier.'

'Why would you?' Neemon asked innocently. 'We've never left Flame Terminal.'

'But I've – never mind.' Bokomon sighed. 'Still, the terrain we came though was anything but green. I can only conclude that's a reflection of the strife our world's found itself in.'

'The digital world is in trouble?' the Floramon asked, wild-eyed.

'Indeed,' said Bokomon gravely, 'and these humans have arrived to save us.'

'You say that like we have a choice in the matter,' Junpei muttered.

'In any case,' Izumi said, a little loudly because really, Junpei needed to work on his tact. Though he wasn't the only one. 'Nothing big's happened yet, as far as we know. We're just training.'

Which was an apt way to put it, she snorted to herself. Not one of them could transform into their spirits at will and they'd tried multiple times along the way – even Kouichi who they'd learnt wasn't the type to sit still when everyone else was trying to do something. It didn't matter anyway. Without danger in their faces, they hadn't succeeded in evolving. Even if danger hadn't seemed to be a prerequisite the first time around. Maybe proximity had done it that time instead.

Maybe they'd never be able to evolve without danger. Maybe they'd never need to. But they all wanted to get some practice in, so they'd be more familiar with fighting this time round. They'd tripped up too many times in fights that could see them seriously hurt against higher level opponents. And they were lucky their opponents hadn't been so high levelled to overwhelm them. If anything, they were the ones ridiculously high levelled.

But power wasn't the best without control. Tomoki was the most concerned, and probably with good reason. Fire pouring out of his armour wasn't a good match with a forest terrain. At least if Izumi couldn't control her spirit, she'd only smack wood and trip over roots… Or she thought so anyway. There might be a stronger attack hidden in there. And Junpei might be able to do more than swing his hammer around as the warrior of earth. And maybe the rest of them had a weapon too. Kouichi certainly did. Or some sort of elemental attack like Takuya and Tomoki. Maybe they had multiple ways of fighting, or maybe they only had the one. But a battle where they fought for their safety wasn't exactly the best place to be finding things like that out. It was only their last chance.

So they tried when they were walking, or taking a break, or camping out. But they hadn't gotten anywhere. Still, until Bokomon pointed out things weren't quite right, they hadn't thought there'd been any immediate danger aside from being randomly attacked. But now…

'What sucked the life out of the land?'

Nobody knew.

.

Their journey was beginning to open up, Ofanimon saw. They'd passed through the barren land whose fractal code had been so depleted and now they realised how very wrong it was. Hindsight was a cruel thing, but a trap they far too often fell into. Even the digimon they journeyed with hadn't put it together this time. Maybe because there was no overarching villain singing their name.

Oh, there was an overarching villain. Of that there was no doubt, and it was to defeat that villain that she and the other two Angels struggled, and that she'd called the children to this world. But the world itself hadn't noticed it yet. The enemy stirred in the shadows. Even their minions moved in the shadows and a confrontation was inevitable… And also not. More often they destroyed themselves, regardless of how the children went in combatting them.

The children grew strong enough to overpower them but even then, they never won.

It was like the fate of those minions was to be crushed by their master. And she pitied them. She really did. But it was so hard to just save six children; she couldn't think of trying to save them as well.

I'm sorry.

Digimon, at least, could be reborn.

In this battle of theirs, they were the sacrifices and the saving grace.

Humans could not, and so they had to be protected. And protecting them meant building them up to defeat the trials in their future, even if that meant adding trials to the present.

They had their spirits. Or the spirits most ill-suited to them.

Now, they had to master them.

Good luck. And don't think too much about the rest of us.

Because she knew they cared. But human morals weren't necessary in sparing digimon. We can't die. But you can. And you mustn't, otherwise our world will be corrupted such that no amount of data saved can bring us back.

.

Their stay with the Floramon went from calm to interesting to problematic. If they'd known staying to eat soup with them would invite the wrath of Mushroom, they wouldn't have. Or maybe they would have. They were all young, after all, and ruled by their stomachs when hungry or when they smelt good food. And at least they could help out.

Hopefully.

Because talking didn't work. At all. It never did and Izumi knew that too well because it had never worked with her, either.

Though maybe it was because someone always wound up screaming. Usually her – and yes, she knew she had to work on her patience, on her tolerance, but there was only so much she could compromise on, too. Should she just stay stuck under others' heels? Because that's what she saw happening…

But at least those sorts of things didn't see a poor village being destroyed.

'It's ridiculous,' Junpei muttered, 'arguing about who the customers like better.'

'People argue about ridiculous things,' Kouichi said – and no-one was quite sure if he was agreeing with Junpei or excusing the digimon or just making an observation.

Takuya responded anyway. 'Too true. I mean, look at all the things my brother and I argue about.'

'Same,' Tomoki agreed.

But arguing between brothers was so different, Izumi thought. And them getting side-tracked wasn't helping with the problem. Especially since the three Mushmon brothers were a wrecking team and the poor Floramon were fleeing for cover.

'I don't know about you guys,' Izumi said finally, 'but I'm putting my foot down.'

And she did exactly that. One of Arbormon's feet, technically. And successfully, which was a relief. Except trying to catch three Mushmons with two hands proved too difficult. Trying to catch one Mushmon brother proved too difficult when she could barely walk straight.

This would be so much easier with wings… she thought.

Still, the fact of the matter was that she didn't have wings. She wasn't floating though the sky and trying to ride the wind, either. She was stumbling around like she was on stilts and the others weren't faring a whole lot better. Ranamon was a little shorter than Takuya was in his human state, and so Takuya kept on misjudging his moves. And to top it off, he only had big rain clouds to dish out and that was causing problems for the rest of them so they finally yelled at him to devolve.

'Okay, okay,' Takuya grumbled.

'It's not you.' Junpei shook his hat – and accidentally the hammer, and quickly dedigiolved too when it plowed through a Floramon's house. 'Drat. We have to be more careful. Agnimon!'

Tomoki was fighting his own fire: trying to stamp the bits he dropped out and finding new fires catching on until Wolfmon helped him out.

'Sorry,' he gasped, turning back. 'Sorry,' he said again to the Floramon, who looked despairingly at their destroyed village.

'Well, the Mushmoon have totalled it anyway,' one sighed. 'You're just trying to protect us.'

Izumi made sure to stay far away from the fires – or ex-fires. She was made of wood right then and wood was definitely going to burn.

But now it was just Arbormon and Wolfmon against three Mushmoon. And she was slow and clumsy, and Kouichi was fast but couldn't see properly.

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Tried to reach for a Mushmoon again and missed. Darn it. Wolfmon swung his blade and missed as well. The Mushmon skipped around them and –

'They're going in circles!' Tomoki yelled.

Izumi blinked and pulled back a bit. Wolfmon swung where the Mushmoon had been standing just a moment ago. The Mushmon moved clockwise. Ah, that's what you meant. She aimed where they'd move. Kouichi aimed where they'd been.

It was pretty satisfying watching one of the Mushmoon fly into a tree – and get fried by a laser?

'Did you just shoot lasers out of your eyes?

Izumi looked at Wolfmon, who'd pulled his scarf back down to his neck (instead of covering his eyes like he had before). 'I got frustrated,' Kouichi said sheepishly, though he was blinking rapidly. Probably couldn't see much in the aftermath.

'If frustrated means you can shoot lasers out of your eyes, feel free,' Izumi replied. Shame she didn't have a power like that.

She tried glaring hard. Nope, not working.

In any case, that took care of the first one, and the other two cowered back in fear.

'Now how about we try and fix all this before there's nothing left to fix?'

Unfortunately, they weren't willing to listen to reason and who knew if that was before or because they'd fought them. The two cowering ones swallowed their fear and struck back, causing Izumi to step back and out of their way… and, thankfully, not fall on her backside again.

Kouichi didn't manage to shoot any more lasers again either but, thanks to Tomoki, they had a better grip on the Mushmon's movements and their own and could corner the other two as well – and so they stuck all three of them inside one of the hollowed out tree bases and give them a tongue-lashing.

Or that was Izumi's original plan. Somehow, a seed bomb escaped from her mouth instead of words.

'I was frustrated?' she blinked, when Kouichi stared at her.

He muffled a laugh. Fair enough, since she'd gotten the line from him in the first place.

.

The Mushmon turned into eggs and then reformed. It was like watching the lifecycle of a digimon, Bokmon said in awe, except accelerated. 'It takes months for digieggs to hatch, usually,' he explained. 'But the data is usually dispersed in the event of a digimon's death, as well. This is different. Like they're being purified instead of destroyed entirely.'

'Purified…' one of the Mushmon sighed. 'Yes; things are so much clearer now. We let our jealousy get the better of us.'

And it was a lovely scene they watched, the Mushmon and Floramon apologising to each other, pointing out the best in each other and beginning to rebuild their little village together. But that hadn't gone the way they wanted, at all. Izumi and Kouichi both found they had long ranged attacks but both of them could be trouble, and talking hadn't helped matters at all.

But that's a problem she hadn't managed to solve, either. She had a better idea at least now, watching them post-purification… or rather, what Bokomon described as post-purification. And maybe that was why these challenges lay on their path. So they could learn to overcome the hurdles they'd faced in their own lives, if given the chance again.

'Am I just seeing something sparkling over there or is something really sparkling?' Kouichi asked, suddenly. He was sitting where he'd devolved and still blinking hard (and shading his eyes with a hand) and pointing to the three they'd slammed the Mushmon into.

Izumi looked. So did the rest of them. There was a spirit in the three – the spirit of wind, Bokomon said.

Like the spirit of ice a few days ago, none of them could make it budge.

Maybe they had progressed a bit. Izumi thought she had, with that little lesson from the Mushmon and Floramon, as well as her new attack and not tripping over her feet in the last breath of the battle… But that still wasn't enough. That still wasn't mastery. Or else the spirits of wind didn't belong to her.

But she was sure they did. Something in her ached when they left. But they had to. They weren't going to get stronger just sitting around.

They weren't good enough quite yet. They'd have to come back once they were.