Chapter 22: Between Being and Not
There.
Here.
Everywhere.
Nowhere at all.
The same and yet not at all.
Double and yet not.
Everything was blurring into one.
Kari leaned against the white walls of the hospital; Gatomon perched on her shoulder, two sets of brown and blue eyes staring down the corridor, tracking an enraged girl and a red bird struggling to keep up with her until they disappeared around a corner.
Neither Yolei nor Hawkmon had noticed them standing there; right next to the door they emerged from and Kari, momentarily stunned by her friend's state, hadn't called out to her. As the stomping of Yolei's feet faded into the depth f the hospital as well, Kari decided to leave it at that, since she didn't think she was able to give comfort to anyone else right now anyway; her own thoughts still jumbled back and forth form what she had overheard just minutes before.
Kari took a deep breath, twirling Gatomon's tail around a finger to calm down.
It did some good and she her thoughts caught up with the situation just as Sora pushed tentatively the door of her brother's room open, eyes cast downwards and face shadowed in a way Kari had never seen on her friend's face before.
Sora didn't notice her either, strolling aimless past her. Piyomon was no where in sight.
Kari begged to all gods she knew that the worst case didn't happen as she hurried to Sora's side and put a hand on the older girl's shoulder to get her attention. It was frightening she needed to do so in the first place. More so than with Yolei.
"Are you all right?"
The question was utterly meaningless; everyone with eyes could see that Sora wasn't, but the words served to pull Sora out of her own despairing little world, showed her that someone cared, directer towards the present from; away from whatever bothered her.
The redhead glanced at her once quickly and Kari caught a glimpse of eyes full of tears just waiting to spill, before Sora quickly looked down again, her frame shaking.
"Come on, let's sit down somewhere." Putting an arm around the girl's shoulder she led her down the corridor to a small public room with few chairs, windows and a round simple desk and pushed her to sit down, handing her a tissue from a box on the table.
Gatomon slid into her lap as she sat down, trying to be of some help to her older sister figure without success.
"Sora!"
Piyomon fluttered gracelessly and just short of hysterical with concern into the small room hugging her partner before she even stopped flying.
At the sight of the pink bird something hard Kari hadn't noticed before melted, leaving her terribly relieved.
Suddenly nothing seemed as hopeless as before; even Sora finally showed a sign of getting better as a watery smile appeared on her face when she hugged her partner and tears fell into pink feathers.
There was still hope.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Kari asked quietly after some time, despite not really being sure that she wanted to know. Because Piyomon was alive something else must have happed. Something bad to make Sora break.
The redhead hiccupped and wiped her face with a tissue again, leaving her eyes swollen and red.
"We went to Double City," Sora began shakily, "and everything was fine. We were just about to come back, when we were attacked. By a Phelesmon. It targeted the Labramon and we…"
Sora dug her hands in Birdarmon's warm feathers, fear battling against her sense of duty as she caught sight of the scene in the streets below her; Labramon pressed against the ground, Phelesmon standing over him, a claw extended and reaching for the helpless Digimon and closing around his neck.
Yolei stood in a safe distance, looking up at her.
Sora didn't know, if this Phelesmon was real or if it was a Murmuxmon, and even though she barely managed to keep her hands from trembling it was clear what she had to do. Personal wishes hardly ever mattered as a Digidestined.
And because it was the same for everyone light flashed up; Holsmon speeding down the alley so fast his form almost blurred as Sora gripped her Digivice harder, initiating the next evolution without a seed of doubt in her mind.
"Birdramon cho-shinka!"
Birdramon's body shifted and grew under Sora's hands and she leaned carefully back, adjusting her hold on her partner, balancing her weight even as feathers turned to rough skin within seconds and every cell under her finger tips was brimming with unused power.
"Garudamon!" When the evolution's light faded Sora at on Garudamon's shoulder, holding tight onto thick strands of her Partner's yellow hair while below on the streets Holsmon's blades were glowing in red energy as he lounged to attack, cutting everything in half what came past him, leaving no space to doge in the narrow alley.
Phelesmon jumped to escape, evading the attack by far, but putting a decisive distance between itself, Labramon, Holsmon, Yolei and even the city.
A beginners mistake to leave cover behind, but it hadn't been left a choice.
They knew that and Garudamon had been waiting for it.
"Shadow Wing!" Fire stored in her partner's wings took form, raced through the air and impacted with Phelesmon in midair, making a grey flower of smoke cloud the air.
Avoiding to let her vision be limited by the remains of her own attack, Garudamon steered down towards the ground to regroup with their teammates for this mission and prepare for a counterattack, but seconds later a shout of triumph broke from her lips when a black, burned body crashed to the ground streets away.
Setting foot on the ground with the help of one of Garudamon's large hands, Sora watched Labramon rise to all fours fluidly.
Any words she might have wanted to say ware forgotten when Labramon's gaze met hers.
"What are you doing?" He growled, an frighteningly animalistic gleam in his eyes and rage dripping from his voice."What the hell are you doing?"
Sora swallowed, feeling small and weak and like a child doing something wrong.
"Run! God damn it, run! You got what you came for, so what are you still doing here?"
There was silence for a second, then Yoei exploded."What we are still doing here? How about saving your life?"
"You idiots! You can't save me! Do you think that thing is the only enemy around here? Because of what you did they'll all come scrambling here now! Flee already!"
"No one is here yet!"
"Yes! So what are you still doing here? Do you want to make this all a waste?"
Yolei glared, but Sora had already devolved Garudamon, not liking what she heard but agreeing none the less and climbed on Holsmon's back behind her friend, stuffing Piyomon between them.
Labramon ran down the streets first. He did look back once to check if they were following or which direction to take, but, looking at his behavior so far, Sora assumed he knew where he was going. It occurred to her that the direction he was leading might not lead them to a portal, however she didn't speak up. They needed to get out of the city first anyway.
A sharp left and an alley so narrow that Holsmon's blades cut into the walls later he burst out of rows of buildings into thick forest and Holsmon had to slow down as not to cut down every tree he passed and leave a trail of felled trees behind them.
Labramon, though, had long since disappeared into the green sea. Sora wasn't sure anymore if she was supposed to care.
On the one hand he was a fellow Digidestined, but on the other he was only present in a borrowed body that he surely couldn't hold forever and the Shisamon he had originally been was one of the enemy Digimon. What if the enemy started missing it? Or what if it suddenly started attacking them like so many others?
Sora wasn't sure, but Yolei apparently had reached the decision to leave him do as he pleased since she scanned her D-terminal's map for the next TV , directing Holsmon further south without a second thought when she found it.
It seemed he had really pissed her off ans since there was no immediate danger Yolei was probably rather glad to be rid of him, Sora mused.
Holsmon sprinted through thick forest, leaves and branches hung in their way and Sora pressed her cheek to Yolei's back as both girls struggled to avoid hard scraps of wood slapping into them.
Piyomon, pressed between her and Yolei, poked her head out to the side and Sora managed only with greatest difficulty not to push her back to protect her, but the tiny rational part of her mind argued out against her agitated nerves and adrenaline that there really was no danger just by running through a forest.
Branches cracked and broke ominously loud and suddenly there was a white shape running alongside them.
"You are surrounded," Labramon informed them nonchalantly, jumping over a root, probably thinking something along the lines of I-told-you-so,"they'll have you in a few minutes." He sniffed the air and the ground, but didn't grace them with more information as he kept pace.
"How do you plan to get out of here?" Yolei decided to ask against her better judgment.
And, true to her thoughts, he sent them a withering glare. "None of your business."
"Excuse me," she snapped, her blood boiling, "but you are using one of our charges there. It damn well is our business!"
"How do you know?" Labramon demanded arrogantly, "this Digimon might have come from another dimension as well."
"It is here now anyway."
There was a short pause in which Yolei almost felt him give her a stare of annoyance. Like she cared.
"It doesn't matter," Labramon said finally, "maybe you are playing –"
"-playing?-"
"-guardian angel of this world, but it simply doesn't matter. You are too spineless and powerless do be of any real help."
A strangled yelp came from behind her, but over the blood rushing in her ears, the heat straining her face Yolei didn't hear it; too absorbed in the anger clouding her mind that she just barely restrained from physically lashing out at the thing racing next to her.
Then, before Yolei lost more control, Holsmon skidded to a halt in a small clearing, a TV glowing faintly through the darkness of the shadowing leaves with her partner's voice being the only disturbance in the too still forest.
"I'll have you know," Holsmon snarled in his refined manner, "that Yolei has been doing her duty greatly for years. The Digiworld has flourished under her and her friends' protection."
Still trembling with anger, Yolei pressed her hands deeper into his fur, seeking his warmth from the infinite trust he put in her to regain control over her emotions and her body.
Nevertheless, Labramon leveled them all with a look of utter insignificance that destroyed any kind of restrain she ahd managed to work up. "What a world it is, then, where the protectors are hardly able to save their own skin. Never mind others'.
"You can't protect anything. Not us, no lives, not your worlds and certainly not me."
Did he never stop? "What do you know? About us? About how we fight? What we have done? How we survived? We were chosen for a reason!" She all but screamed at him, fists shaking and furious tears she never noticed dropping to the high grass as she slid down from Holsmon's back, knees weak.
Labramon's red eyes pointedly strolled over them while she caught her breath, exhausted from more than this mission."You are right, of course." He said calmly, assessing, dismissively, "I don't know anything about you. But I do have a mind to make judgments with and I'm simply telling you what conclusions I have reached based on observations. With what happened in the Pillar Hall and with what I see here now.
"Incompetence.
"It is, for example, utterly pathetic that I have to remind you yet again to get out of here. Or to run, if you only stopped here, because your personal opinion mattered more to you than your mission."
Rage clouded her mind possessively and Yolei was unable to form any single thought other than how much she hated the person hiding in the skin of another.
Hate, hate, hate.
She wasn't sure she had ever felt that much hatred running hot and consuming through her blood.
Incapable of doing anything but staring, glaring, hating, she followed Sora's tug on her sleeve without even noticing it, getting closer to the TV even as Labramon's uncompassionate eyes followed them as much as hers him until his attention was pulled away with ears twitching and scanning everything surrounding them.
A low grown escaped his throat.
"Come on, Yolei, we are going," Sora whispered in her ear, the elder girls breath hot on her cheek, with a badly shaking voice.
Whirling on the spot she reached out for her Digivice, as she picked Hawkmon up with the other hand and held him clutched painfully tight to her chest. Holding her divice down to the TV, their respective lights resonating until she felt familiar pull in every inch of her skin, making her disappear from the world she had sworn to protect.
"Wait! Wha-!" That was Sora and, suddenly horrified to her bones, Yolei struggled to turn around as she was sucked away into the safety of the real world, but not before she saw Labramon glowing, inflating and finally exploding in a big wave of flames.
Squeezing her eyes shut the image of a lost innocent live was burned into her mind as she waited to land-
"-back here. That's it. Will you tell me now where I can find that- that-urgh! I don't even have words for him!"
Matt, Tai and Izzy traded uneasy glances before looking back at Yolei, who had come storming back into Tai's room after she had been unable to find where Takuya was being taken care of.
"Yolei, what happened in Double City wasn't right, that's true, but"-Yolei snorted with disgust-"there is probably more to the situation than what we see at first glance," Tai held up a hand here to forestall an angry outburst that Yolei surely would have like to let go of, "I'm not saying that what Takuya's friend did can be justified, just that we shouldn't deal with it just yet."
Tai sighed, "there is a lot to deal with, including the problem you have just talked about."
"Then why-?"
"Takuya, for one, has a split personality now. Most likely," Matt said, leaning his arm on the back of his chair and looking outside, apparently untroubled.
"Split…personality?" Yolei stumbled over the familiar yet unknown words, her usually quick brain having short circuited at the term being connected to someone she knew.
"That's right. I don't think it'd lead to anything other than more trouble if you'd go to him now and we don't need that. Not to mention," Tai gave her a mischievous wink, "that we have no idea where his room is either."
...
...
Thump.
Once. Nothingness.
...
Thump.
Twice. Eternity.
...
Thump.
It was there. Almost not. But still. It was of no matter -almost not. Of no meaning. Yet it was there.
Again.
Thump.
That was everything there was about it.
Yet.
No significance.
It was there and that was all.
Thump. Thump.
Kari slid the door open, stepping silently inside after she caught sight of Takuya awake.
Slightly surprised she noticed the room Takuya and his friends occupied wasn't different from the one she used and Kari wasn't sure whether it was a good thing that she had perhaps expected something else or not. What was it that she had expected? Cables, monitors and a lab next door? Kari shook her head at the thought.
Sitting down in a chair beside him she asked politely how he was doing while she looked at his friends, eyes hanging at the form of a little brown haired boy for a moment. He wasn't any older than Cody.
"Fine."
She threw him a look that clearly told him just what she thought of that standard reply. It never convinced anyone. Least of all those who have used it similarly. Sadly she was one of those.
He grinned -Kari wasn't sure if it was real- and holt up his hands defensively. "I'm fine, really."
Kari still didn't believe him, but she dropped the subject. If he didn't want to talk then he wouldn't. Not to somebody who was just perhaps little more to him than a stranger.
And strangers they were to her. How often had she seen him now? When he was conscious? Four, five times? Out of those how often had she talked to him? Just talked, not fought? Once, twice, if at all.
No wonder their groups were already falling apart.
But she could still fix it. It is never too late to become friends. But…
"Yolei and Sora are back." Kari said, keeping all traitorous emotions out of her voice as she carefully watched the brown haired teenager next to her react.
Takuya visibly perked up from his own thoughts which she guessed to be rather depressing all things considered. "Really?"
She nodded, her own opinion split between justified anger and the desire to listen to all points of view. "It was a success, technically speaking. And they were unhurt."
"But?" He had picked up on her unspoken pause without a second of hesitation and Kari suspected Takuya was still expecting something interesting, too. Why, she didn't know, though. Perhaps it was simply because he wasn't naïve enough to believe everything went off without a hitch. Or he just knew his friend.
"Yolei came back furious and crying." A pause. Takuya didn't twitch a muscle, but Kari saw something flicker in his gaze. "Sora is rather down as well. Piyomon, too. "
"Oh." Takuya commented tonelessly. "Did they say something?"
"I got the gist of what happened." Takuya's eye twitched.
"Let me guess," he said exasperated, "Koji was an absolute jerk?" He had a wry tone of humor mixed in his voice which was none the less overloading with annoyance as he slummed deeper in his chair, but his attitude was inappropriate to the situation.
"As far as I know your friend killed his host body."
Takuya groaned in response and sank a little deeper, closing his eyes as he massaged the bridge of his nose.
Nice to know Takuya actually understood the implications.
It was something that set him from Davis apart and with a sudden start she realized that she had never just looked at Takuya. The boy called Takuya had always been a mix of her brother and Davis to her; she had totally ignored that other events and a different path had shaped him, turned him into a person that reacted in serious situations completely different form the people she knew and treasured.
No matter how similar they all looked or acted during their free time.
She wondered if she was the only one having made that mistake.
Now that she thought about it, though, it was decisively because he was so similar to her brother that his attitude and way of handling trouble upset her all the more.
And it was, she admitted sadly, remembering the conversation she had overheard between her brother and Izzy earlier, perhaps understandable that Takuya thought the way he did.
It was really sad.
"I thought you'd like to know in advance that Yolei is very likely to hit you the next time you meet." Takuya grimaced some more, gaining a dry smile from her even though there was nothing nice to smile about. Nothing at all.
"I'll remember that," Takuya responded. He sounded tired. So very tired, making her wonder just how much of her brother's idea was true.
It couldn't remain like this.
Takuya needed help. She needed help. Everyone needed help. Even if he didn't acknowledge it.
"How did you first enter the Digiworld?" Takuya gave her a startled at the strange subject before his lips slowly broke into a wide grin. Hopefully it was honest.
"It was really silly," he began, "I got a message to my mobile phone asking 'would you like to start? Or not?'. I was bored out of my mind that time so I just pressed the yes button. Then my phone started to sprout nonsense about my future and somehow i decided to just go along with it. Don't look like that," he added as Kari stared incredulously ,"I know it wasn't the smartest decision. Anyway, I followed directions from my phone and ended in an underground Trailmon Station. So far everything had been nice and all, but then we suddenly had to fight for our lives without even a reason. We didn't even get a warning! Lady Ophanimon just sent us all this stupid mail and then pretty much told us 'if you survive I might tell you why you are here'," he exclaimed in fake horror, a grin twitching on his lips all the while.
Then, suddenly, he just clasped his arms behind his head, his outgoing demeanor almost disappearing on the spot, exchanged with more refined control, but he was still smiling. That was good right? "How about you?"
Hopefully not visibly struggling not to show how much his change of behavior –and perhaps personality- unsettled her, she smiled as well. Because Kari had no reason not to smile. At the moment.
"My start was a bit more troubled," she told him, remembering how much she had cursed the cold she had caught later.
Koji was back in the strange world of black and white; of Darkness and Light. It was symbolic and Koji really liked it.
Koichi was standing next to him, grinning and Koji smirked in return.
"It worked."
Koichi's smile widened a fraction. "That's great."
"Of sorts. Now I only have to figure out how to get out of that stupid pillar." It was ridiculous. Who stuffed prisoners into pillars of all things? Flat solid walls would be far more practical.
He wasn't going to complain, but it was moronic. And as a matter of principle Koji outright refused to be at the mercy of somebody so stupid.
"If you don't, we'll soon come and get you out ourself."
Koji raised an eyebrow. "With the sort of help we apparently have here I'll be out before you even start to make a plan."
"Ouch."
"No kidding. But it is fine, I guess. Other people have other ways." Didn't mean that he had to like it, though.
There was a short pause before his brother spoke again and Koji wondered if Koichi had similar thoughts on the matter.
"Do you think we can meet like this again?"
"Huh?" Koichi looked tired, Koji noticed. Really tired and his body was disappearing into dark mist.
"In this space, I mean. While you are still away. Or in general when we are far apart. I like it here."
"I don't know, but why shouldn't we?"
Koichi smiled. Then he was gone.
Glancing around once in the now empty world Koji turned around and got to work on gaining his freedom.
Well aware that there was going to be reason that his memories wouldn't blur like before.
This is the chapter for September and it was a real pain to write. :(
But I'm done, finally. Two days later than i wanted, but still done!
The part with Kari and Takuya as well as what Koji said was easy, but the rest was a real struggle to put into words. I hope it won't show in my writing, though. Reviews and expectations (thank you very much!) were my lifeline during the last 1000 words. They really saved me. I almost uploaded this a good thousand words short. It would have been a personal low and surely disappointing. X_X
To those who haven't already, please leave a vote in my poll about Gatomon.
Please review and thank you really very much for last chapter's. :)
Next chapter will come in October.