Chapter 27: Seven Years Gone
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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.
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"Ow, I feel like I have a hangover," Rinchei commented, clutching the sides of his head. He also felt some serious nausea and so did Kurita, though to a lesser extent.
"Using that technique over long distances tends to do that." There was that voice again. The group found themselves in the courtyard of a large fortress.
"I must pledge my thanks for bringing us here," Piddomon told the large android.
"No problem, man," he said before splitting off into two, Andromon and a man who looked to be in his early-twenties with brown hair spiked upward. Kurita instantly recognized him.
"Kazu!" he exclaimed, fidgeting nervously out of shock and pointing at the guy.
"Wait, do we know each other?" the brown-haired man asked.
"You were friends with my brother Tadashi!" the giant blond exclaimed in joy. "No way! This is just insane! We're in the same world as Takato and the others! What are the odds?"
Rinchei just stood there in silence. His greatest nightmare had been realized: his brother had to endure years in a distant world. "Henry? Is he here?"
"Yeah? You know him?" Kazu asked, not recognize either of the eighteen-year-olds.
"He's my brother!" the skinny guy yelled.
"No way…" Kazu looked in between the two teens. "How the heck is this possible? We've been gone for seven years." He didn't quite believe Kuzuhamon that there was a time difference between this digital world and his native world. Everyone had hoped that there was but feared the opposite.
"No, you've been only gone three months," Kurita objected. "But… Man, this is freaky."
Kazu didn't know how to take it. "My parents are still alive," he said in shock, dropping to the ground. "They're still alive!"
"Uh, yeah, they are," the large blond told the brown-haired man, slightly confused.
"What about Jeri and the others? What about Ai and Mako?" the spikey brown-haired man asked Kurita happily, holding the large man by the collar.
"They're all doing great," Kurita replied, barely suppressing a grin. "But before I tell you about everything, how about we meet the others. I'm sure Rinchei wants to meet his brother after all this time and I'm sure that Henry feels the same way."
Kazu smiled. "This has made everything worth it."
"Hope so. It would suck if everything we did was for nothing," Kurita told him as the more-experienced Tamer led the two of them into the building.
He instantly shouted as he entered. "Everybody, we have visitors and they have news from our world!" Kazu shouted with glee.
Immediately, a shorter man with black hair showed up as well as another brown-haired man, this one noticeably tanned. Soon after, a familiar red dinosaur peeked over the railing on the top floor as well as a certain dog-rabbit.
The blond chuckled at the sight. "Wow, and to think my brother was searching for these guys…"
"You're from our world?" the second brown-haired man asked.
"Yeah, the name's Kurita Nakabayashi. You must be Ryo, am I right?" the blond asked.
"Yeah, that's my name," the man responded, noticeably shaken.
"This is crazy!" the black-haired guy, presumably Kenta, exclaimed. "You're Tadashi?"
"Nope," Kurita said with a chuckle. "I'm his older brother." The blond noticed Rinchei climb the stairs as he talked with the others.
###
"Come on, Henry! They're down there and they're waiting for us!" Terriermon told his partner.
"Not now, Terriermon. I'll talk to them at dinner," the dark-haired man said as he went over schematics with Takato.
"But Henry…"
"So, you wouldn't take a chance to see your older brother?" Henry looked away from the schematics to see something he didn't believe. Rinchei. This was impossible. This had to be an illusion.
But then he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder. Takato was looking from the other side of the table, equally in shock at the sight.
"Rinchei? It's really you," the dark-haired man said, tears streaming down his face as he hugged his brother for the first time in seven years. "I thought I wasn't going to see you ever again."
"Don't worry, you'll see us all again and soon," the dark brown-haired teen said, tears coming down his face as well. "Mom, dad, Jaarin and Suzie are all okay. They're waiting for you. We all are." Rinchei had to stifle some sniffles.
Takato walked over from his place. "What about my parents? Are they okay?" he asked, getting a nod from his friend's brother.
"As far as I know, Jeri is too," Rinchei said, causing a bit of guilt to come into Takato's heart. "She comes by Hypnos every day just in case, though lately she's been a bit busy."
Takato smiled sadly at what could have been. "She's okay, good." Then he turned and walked away. "I'll be in the other room."
Rinchei nodded.
###
"So, Tadashi and the others are Tamers? When did that happen?" Kazu asked, surprised at the large man's announcement. They were sitting at the dining table.
"It was shortly after you left. First Tadashi and Yuji got partners, followed by Taizou and Miki sometime later," Kurita explained. "I guess Ayaka got hers a bit earlier and she just achieved Ultimate too."
"Crazy," the brown-haired guy responded. "When did you guys get partners? You and Henry's bro, I mean."
"About a week-and-a-half ago," Kurita replied. "I got an egg from a friend of mine. You may have met him. He was going by Keith Jackson at the time."
"That name doesn't ring a bell," Kenta replied. "Sorry."
"Not a problem," the blond said. "So, how many of you are here?"
"Five. Me, Kazu, Kenta, Takato and Henry. Rika's out on patrols, but she'll be back by dinner," Takato told Kurita. It was then that the blond noticed the ring on the man's left hand.
"Wait a second, are you married, man?" Kurita asked, grabbing the goggle-headed Tamer's arm and examining the ring for himself.
"Uh, yeah, Rika and I tied the knot a couple of years ago," Takato responded, chuckling. "We got the rings from a blacksmith in a village far to the south of here."
"Man, how can the rest of you guys stand having only one girl around, anyway?" Kurita inquired of the rest. "I mean, it's gotta suck that she's taken."
"We try not to think about it, man," Kazu said, reclining backwards in his chair. "Still, I wish somebody would send some cute girls here or something like that. It sucks that there are no girls around."
Kenta nodded in agreement. It was about that time when Takato walked into the room.
"How is everything going?" Ryo asked the group.
"Great," Takato responded. "We were just telling Kurita about a few of the things that have happened during our stay here."
"Yeah, they told me about this one battle. Where was it at again?" Kurita asked, referring to what they were talking about before they got on the subject of relationships.
"The Valley of the End. We managed to push the Emperor's forces back many miles," Ryo said.
"The Valley of the End? Isn't that a place on Naruto?" the blond joked.
"Naruto? I haven't thought of that show in ages," Kazu said, chuckling.
Takato looked at the rest, a grin forming on his face. "Rinchei apprised me of the situation. Tomorrow we are going to start training him and Kurita!"
Kurita looked in shock at that one. This definitely wasn't the same kid he had met in the past.
Everything changed.
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Rika and Renamon made it back as the sun began to set around the compound. So far, there was next to nothing to worry about. The Emperor's forces seemed to have been busy elsewhere for some reason. She wondered if the incursion that Kazu made into his territory had something to do with it. She noticed hours earlier, but thought it was just him being a bonehead like always.
"I feel a presence. Several new presences, actually," Renamon told her, seemingly out of the blue.
"So, they probably got a few digimon visiting or something," Rika remarked. "By the way, when we get inside, I want a little alone time with Takato."
The yellow fox understood. "That shall happen."
"Good. I wonder what he's up to right now," she said with a mischievous smile.
"He's most likely at the dinner table, getting ready to eat," Renamon told her.
"Oh please, after a week of patrolling, he better be more romantic than that," she told her partner. "Come on, I want candles and rose petals."
Renamon rolled her eyes. "Strange, he usually has something planned, but I clearly sense his presence at the table."
"Along with those new presences? Maybe the Emperor decided to finally give it up," Rika suggested, hopeful but not buying it.
"Somehow I doubt it, Rika," her partner said as they inched toward the dining room. That was when Rika noticed something unexpected. There were two people she didn't recognize. The woman entered into the room as they were talking about everything that had gone on over the past seven years.
"So, anyway, Rika got kidnapped. We planned a rescue operation but met her just a hundred miles into the Emperor's domain," Kazu said, grinning as he told the story. "It turned out that the Emperor tried to marry her but she refused to go along with it and kicked him where it hurt most instead."
"The guy probably deserved it," Kurita said before shuddering. "Still, that's gotta hurt! Was she married to Takato at the time."
"Yeah," the goggle-head said, rolling his eyes. "We had been married for about six months by then."
"And we're still married," the red-head commented, alerting everybody to her presence. She still looked much the same, though she was definitely more mature than she used to be. "So, this is the surprise you had waiting, huh? A shame, I was expecting flowers." Her tone was teasing and she was smiling.
Takato walked over and kissed her. "Well, yeah, I was going to do that, but we found these guys in the middle of an Arrakimon colony."
"Or at least I did," Kazu boasted, grinning from ear to ear.
"I found them first," the goggle-head told him. "You just went and got them."
"Okay, number one target of the Emperor," the visor-wearing man said teasingly.
"So, are you going to introduce me to the new guys or what?" Rika inquired.
"The name's Kurita Nakabayashi," the large blond responded, walking up to the red-head, kneeling and kissing her hand. "Pleased to meet you. Shame you're taken."
The girl rolled her eyes. Takato simply chuckled at that one. "Oh please…"
"And I'm Henry's brother, Rinchei," the dark-haired newcomer said, raising his hand.
"Henry, you lucky son of a gun. You know, though, I really wish another girl would have come instead, but this should work out fine, I guess," Rika commented.
"Don't we all," Kazu told her.
"So, how are things back home?" the red-head asked.
Rinchei and Kurita explained everything to Rika that they had already told Takato and the others.
###
The Emperor thought about things as he received his daily massage and healing treatment. Thanks to the latter, he had been able to maintain the looks of a twenty-year-old despite having been alive thirty. Still, there were a number of issues he has had over the years.
After the massage was finished, he got up and moved his massive body over to the window, eyeing his fleets. He had had so much trouble from Takato's team over the years that he was just about done with it. He needed his final solution and he needed it now.
It was about then that his chief general, a golden-armored digimon named Jupitermon, walked in. The former leader of the Olympus XII bore a dark bangle on his left arm.
"Your excellence, the fusion process has proven successful," the god informed him.
"Great. I guess we'll just have to test it out. You know, with the entire army to back it up, we should have a decisive victory against Takato and that stupid team of his." The Emperor's voice was crackly.
"By the way, the Arrakimon colony detected something else that the Tamers had found," Jupitermon decided to add.
"Yeah, what is it?" the Emperor asked rudely.
"Two more Tamers have appeared, seemingly out of nowhere," the god said, a bit of worry in his voice that he was about to get killed for his delay even though the Emperor didn't really have the power to destroy him at the moment.
"What? Like that's going to be a problem. The plan is going to go perfectly." The massive man laughed. "They won't know what hit them."
###
The next couple of weeks involved lots of training and going on patrols for Kurita and Rinchei. Rinchei always went with his brother while Kurita would constantly go with Takato.
One day, Kurita made his way through some badlands with the goggle-headed leader before stopping for a break. The blond looked around at the area, admiring the rust-colored rocks and sparse vegetation while wandering a little away from camp. So far, they hadn't encountered anything dangerous and the large blond kind of wanted something to break up the monotony.
"So, is there anything like this in the real world?" Liollmon asked out of curiosity.
"The real world has just about everything in it," Kurita replied, feeling the wind go through his hair. He felt like he was going to need to get it cut soon.
"Maybe when we get back we should go to a place like that," the lion cub suggested.
"Yeah, that would be cool," the blond responded. He was starting to miss home, despite his brother's betrayal. The next time he talked to that kid, he was going to smack him on the side of the head. Not that he was actually going to do it. Still, the whole thing hit him hard. Tadashi worried him.
It was about then that he noticed some text on the wall. Only this text was in plain English. The large man squinted for a second as he read through the writing on the wall, stopping at a weird symbol at the end.
"I hope you like the digital world."
"What? Who the heck wrote this?"
That was when he noticed the next line. He had no idea how he didn't notice it before. "This was written by the Time Lord, Alexander Rinaldi."
"Right… Takato! I found something!" the large man called out.
"Are you ready to reach Ultimate?"
The large blond stared at the text. He wondered how that was happening. "Okay, seriously, what the heck is going on?"
"I'm talking to you."
"Right…" The blond rolled his eyes before looking around. "So, that means you're watching me."
"Pretty much."
"Okay, then how the heck are you writing this?" Kurita asked, clenching his teeth in frustration. He read the next line.
"Well, I'm watching you from the past. I'm a Time Lord, remember, not that I wanted to be one."
Kurita raised an eyebrow. There was no way he was going to think about that one too hard. "Okay, what the heck is going on, exactly? Are you the dude that brought Rinchei and I here?"
"No, that was my predecessor, the Watchmaker. I figured that since you'd be here, I'd send you a message. Oh, by the way, duck." Kurita made a face before doing so. He was glad he did since a fist went straight into the wall in front of him. When he got out of the way, he looked back to see what digimon had attempted to attack. It was a large, muscular cat man. The blond checked his digivice. "Persiamon (male), Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute. The heck?"
"Liollmon digivolve to… Liamon!" his partner yelled out, reaching the Champion Level. It wasn't going to be easy, though, and they knew that. "King's Thunder!" The digimon charged for two seconds as Persiamon turned around before unleashing an electrical attack against the enemy digimon.
Kurita looked at a nearby wall. More lettering. "There's a dark spiral on the digimon's arm. You need to reach Ultimate, though."
"The heck do I do that?" he asked before turning his attention to the digimon his partner was fighting.
"Vampire Wave!" the male Persiamon shouted, aiming for Liamon's neck. The lion was able to dodge, though, and countered with an attack of his own. The lion bore his fangs and aimed for Persiamon's chest.
"Critical Strike!" The attack struck Persiamon's chest, causing small amounts of data to spill out. Still, the attack didn't really do tons of damage.
Kurita grabbed some of his cards. "Digi-modify! Strength Activate!" he yelled, scanning a card and causing Liamon to become slightly stronger. Unfortunately, the next attack he used didn't work out as well, due to Persiamon avoiding it.
Kurita thought about it some more. He needed to destroy the dark spiral and soon. But how would he do that?
Liamon charged at Persiamon, readying his attack. "King's Thunder!"
The cat dodged the attack by moving to the side before lunging forward and grabbing hold of the lion in front of him, using its superior strength to prevent Liamon from moving or even biting.
Kurita needed to help his partner. He had already used a strength card so that wasn't an option. He needed to do something fast. He wasn't going to let his partner down. Looking around, he saw a number of rocks, some small, others large. So, he grabbed one of the large ones and hurled it at the male Persiamon, attempting to aim at the dark spiral around its arm but failing.
"There's no way you're going to kill my partner!" the large teen yelled out, charging against the digimon himself to try and rip off the spiral with his above aver average strength or at least free his partner from the grips of the Ultimate-level digimon long enough for him to do. The blond yelled out a battle cry, charging like he would in football and aiming straight at the arm.
All he managed to do was distract the cat-like digimon a little bit so that he had loosened his grip slightly. Then the blond grabbed another large stone and, using his above-average strength, hurled it at the digimon. It hit and the Persiamon had had enough, so he let go of Liamon and aimed straight for Kurita.
This is the end, the blond thought. There was no way he was going to let anybody else down. He had already let his partner down. And his brother.
Except that he didn't. His partner was free now and as Persiamon headed straight for the robust blond, Liamon charged him as well. The lion distracted the large cat long enough for Kurita to move out of the way. "There's no way you're going to hurt my partner, kitty!"
The male Persiamon grinned before clawing Liamon in the chest with its sharp claws.
That prompted another stone throw. "I'm sorry I let you down, man!" Kurita exclaimed to his partner.
"You didn't let me down, partner," Liamon assured him, reeling from the pain. The enemy digimon then turned his attention toward Kurita once again. He should have done this first. After all, the Tamer is the weakest part of the human-partner relationship, at least physically.
So he charged the large man, ready to take a chunk out of that belly. What he didn't expect was a light-blue light coming from the digivice as he approached.
Reliability…
SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_
"Liamon digivolve to…" The digimon grew, becoming a larger, metallic digimon, painted yellow. The digimon's metal mane seemed to be a cyclone around his head and looked like it had numerous knives jutting out of it. The rest of his cyborg body had yellow armor over it, stretching from head to toe. His tail turned into a large, spiked Morningstar.
"… LoaderLiomon!"
Kurita backed up against the wall and read the text on it. "Good job." Instantly, the large man rolled his eyes.
LoaderLiomon immediately tackled Persiamon, using his now-superior strength to get the digimon away from his partner. "Boring Storm!" The digimon's mane rotated extremely fast, causing him to damage the large cat all over the body.
Then, aiming for the dark spiral, the digimon prepared another attack. "Loader Morningstar!"
The attack shattered the dark spiral, causing it to fly off into multiple pieces. Persiamon immediately screamed before running away. Apparently the digimon had no idea what was happening.
Kurita just stood there. He had a hard time believing he had actually achieved Ultimate with his partner. It felt like they had been together only a short time. The large blond took a deep breath and smiled.
"Okay, so where's your camera, dude?" he asked to the wall before seeing the answer.
"I don't have a camera. I'm using your digivice." The blond's eyes widened. "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a bit disturbing but your digivices are also recording devices." Kurita had no idea how many times he had taken the digivice into the bathroom or into the gym with him. He shuddered at the thought.
"So, what do you want, anyway? Are you the Emperor?"
He saw the answer to that one as well. "Oh, no, definitely not. The emperor's someone named Samuel Joseph Krenzel. Didn't you try looking for him with your digivice?"
"Never thought about it," Kurita commented, grabbing the infernal monitoring device and using it to locate the Second Emperor. "Partner: Mercurymon. Nationality: American. Other than that, nothing much on this guy."
Then he saw the next bit of writing. "That's what's with him having a D-3. They have a few more features than basic Adventure digivices, but other than that, not much. Strange, the digivices used by the original digidestined are actually slightly more advanced than the Adventure Digivices, despite having been made before. I wonder if Gennai's team lost the records sometime after the final defeat of their enemy."
Kurita gave the writing a look. "Okay, is there any point to this? Why don't you just show your face?"
"I'd rather not. Not like you'd recognize me, anyway, but still… As far as the point… Well, you have only a few days until the Second Emperor decides to unleash his ultimate weapon, pun not intended."
"I have no idea what you're talking about with the pun thing," Kurita said, narrowing his eyes.
"I have no idea either," LoaderLiomon agreed in a gruff voice.
"Hehe, you'll see when you get there." Kurita was getting tired of seeing random responses to his questions and statements everywhere he looked. He gritted his teeth in irritation at the prospect of being watched as well. "Anyway, warn the Tamers. Only a few days and his generator will go down. At the same time, he'll unleash his weapon. My team which is basically run by a kid named Art, since he does all the strategizing, has managed to set this back as far as possible, but now it's up to you, Takato and the others."
"Art? That a name?" the large blond asked before finding his eyes latch onto something else.
"Uh, yeah, good kid if a bit grumpy... Anyway, you're also going to have to go to World 6-0 with Takato and the others after this and wait for Kurata. My attempts to get your brother's team to go after the Dimension Key using the texts I put on various walls met with failure and they went after Dagomon instead, resulting in Kurata getting the key before the whole Two Emperors thing was resolved."
"Why don't you do this yourself?" Kurita asked as he saw Takato finally show up.
"Don't have a partner. Plus, it took me forever to get my team together. You know how hard it is to get a small team together when being a Tamer is banned? Plus, it took me awhile to gather the rest of my Agents."
The heavyset man was having a hard time believing this whole Time Lord mumbo-jumbo, especially when he wouldn't show his face. At that time, Takato finally showed up, not having heard Kurita call for him earlier and deciding to look for him. "Okay, Al, I'll tell the others, but you're going to have to tell us soon yourself."
"Who are you talking to?" Takato asked before Kurita found the final piece of writing.
"Alright, that works. Find my old friend Antonio when you get a chance and tell him Alexander Rinaldi said hi. Oh, and his son says hi, too."
"This dude, a Time Lord, decided to talk to me from the past using these inscriptions. Whenever I would ask a question, a new one would show up," Kurita explained. "I wonder who the heck he is. He knows Ed, I guess."
"That's… weird…" Takato commented, not quite believing it but taking the blond's word for it anyway. "What did he say?"
"The Emperor is going unleash his ultimate weapon when his generator fails. I guess this guy's been stalling him somehow," Kurita explained.
The goggle-headed man shook his head, finally figuring something out. "So that's what the Emperor meant."
"You've heard of these guys?" the large blond asked.
Takato nodded. "Yeah, some team of Tamers showed up every few months, I guess. The Emperor claimed we hijacked his projects, but we don't know who they are other than that. Oh, and there were also all the books, DVDs and computers that appeared out of nowhere in our library. Apparently someone thinks we should all study for something called a GED."
Kurita nodded. After a few minutes' pause, he spoke again. "Have you ever felt like you were some pawn in somebody else's larger game?"
Takato gave him another affirmative answer. "Yeah…"
"Now, why all the subterfuge?" Kurita asked.
"Maybe he feels that if he messes around too much in the past, he'll screw it up," the brown-haired man suggested.
"But still, if he just came forward and explained everything… Oh, and he said we should go to World 6-0 right after this. Something called a Dimension Key."
Takato nodded. "We're going to have to talk to the others about this."
"Oh, and by the way, I reached Ultimate," Kurita told Takato.
The blond gave another affirmative. "Cool, just reach Mega and you'll be ready to beat the Emperor single-handedly."
###
"I don't believe it," Rika told the group. "This couldn't have possibly happened."
"I was there," Frimon, Liollmon's in-training form, confirmed, bouncing on his partner's lap.
"Think about it. This explains everything!" Takato told the team, sitting at the head of the table.
"Yeah, but this is unlikely. How do we know that these Time Lords exist?" Henry asked.
"There can probably be only one at a time," Kurita suggested, "since we've heard about the other Time Lord, the Watchmaker. We don't know who he is exactly, but we can guess that he has something to do with this."
"So, we're dealing with time travelers?" Henry asked. "This should be interesting. Have any idea when they're from?"
Kurita shrugged. "I'd guess the future. Alex said that he had to scrounge up a team in a world where Taming was illegal."
"Time travel? Man this is going to give me a headache," Kazu mumbled, rubbing his forehead and grimacing. "Still, after seven years stuck here, I kind of wish he would have beaten the Emperor before we got here instead. Watch, he probably couldn't. Some mumbo-jumbo about preserving the timeline or something."
"I wonder what this Dimension Key does," Kenta mused, scratching his chin. The boy was still the shortest one in the room, adulthood didn't change that fact.
"Whatever it is, it can't be good," Rinchei told the group calmly.
"We'll need to get to World 6-0 right after this so maybe then we'll find out," the Kurita said.
"Who said that we'd be going?" Rika asked the massive blond.
"You know, she's right," Takato said, though more calmly. "We should take a vote on this."
"Yeah, and then we need to figure out what to do about this Ultimate Weapon that the Emperor has," Henry commented.
"And who knows, this Kurata guy might be a good guy and that Alexander dude might actually be evil," Kazu suggested.
The heavy blond shook his head. They would have to figure out what to do eventually, but for now, they were at a stalemate.
###
A few hours later, Rinchei found Kurita and his partner in the game room, where they could play pirated versions of just about any video game in history that Kuzuhamon had gotten from the net. Right now, Kurita was busy playing some adventure game with an unidentifiable orange marsupial on the front with a large triangular body and a small lower body covered in jeans.
"Hey, how are you doing?" the dark-brown-haired teen asked his friend, concerned for his well-being.
"Alright, just a few more hours of Crash Bandicoot and I'll be fine," Kurita responded. "You know, I can't blame them. They've been stuck here for seven years and they're right."
Rinchei nodded. "So, what are you going to do?"
Kurita thought about it for a second. The massive blond scratched his chin while doing so cross-legged and with Crash Bandicoot on pause. "I know exactly what I'm going to do, okay."
"What?" Rinchei inquired, fearing what the answer might be. He was prepared for anything.
"Well, it's my responsibility to go and investigate these charges against Kurata and see what this dimension key does," the blond told his lanky friend, a determined grin crossing his face.
Rinchei shook his head. "You're nuts, man, you're nuts."
Kurita chuckled a bit. "Oh, yeah, and I know it! But it has to be done. Come on, if this guy's a threat, then I might just save the Multiverse or something."
The lanky man smiled. "Okay, then I guess I'll have to come with you."
###
The Emperor knew something was up when he woke up to alarms. Getting straight out of bed and putting on his robes, he went straight for the control room. "What the-?"
The sight would have been a familiar nightmare to the other emperor. The screen said: Generator Power: 99%.
The Emperor knew what he had to do. He hit a button that activated a command program for all his slaves in case something like this happened. Then he went and slammed on a button that would unleash his ultimate weapon. If he couldn't have this world, nobody could. He didn't endure fifteen years of war, removing dark flowers and having to deal with teams coming out of nowhere and destroying his progress for nothing.
The final invasion would begin and the Emperor would escape.
###
A/N: Apologies to those wanting a different couple. I originally wrote the scene with Ryuki in mind but, I don't know, I just like Rukato better. Hehe.
So, yeah, there's a second Time Lord thrown into the mix. He's actually a character that's already been introduced. Also, Art's important, though you won't see him until Chapter 30 or so.