4. Just What Are Your Rights?
In hindsight, Nene wanted to scold herself for screaming like an uncultured heathen. Then again, a girl had fallen from the sky. She could be forgiven for losing her sensibilities for a minute or so. Thankfully, said little girl had been falling in Greymon's general direction and so MailBirdramon was able to catch her without too much damage. Not that it mattered, Cutemon had to rush to heal the young girl immediately due to the injuries they could see. Which were burns, bruises, bleeding, like she had just narrowly escaped a minefield.
The small hole that had opened for her had closed as seamlessly as it had appeared, leaving nothing behind. Wisemon was inspecting of course, and she couldn't blame him. Random portals appearing was always a bad sign.
Yuu's voice caused her to turn, and for Kiriha, finally, to let go of her shoulder. For whatever reason, his face was bright red as he did. Well, she would be concerned about that another time. Her head had started to throb longer she looked at the unconscious girl. The very sight of injuries made her almost literally see red for a moment or two. Then she looked at her brother and the pain seemed the intensify, spreading from her brain into her hands. There was a horrible wrongness the longer he looked.
"Nee-san?" he said, voice soft. "Are you okay?"
Nene jolted, thoughts and feelings and pain fading into something small and locked up in her heart. "Yes, I'm all right," she said quickly. "I just was surprised, that was all."
Yuu looked at her so knowingly and with a lot of fear and she smiled, going to report to Shoutmon even as Wisemon practically buzzed like an annoying fly.
She didn't look at her brother in an attempt to get these ugly, ugly thoughts out of her head. She couldn't hang onto it.
How could she sit there and think 'why does her brother exist' like that? Of course he was supposed to exist. Of course he was supposed to be here.
Akari followed Nene without thought, keeping quiet to not startle her. To not cause her to lock herself up like she often did. Akari tried not to laugh. She was a soon-to-be voice actress, after all. To put on faces was only natural. The Digital World had put the skill to good use.
Well, at least for one of them.
Akari cleared her throat. Nene turned and smiled.
"I'll be all right," she said before Akari could speak. "Just… a headache, that's all."
Akari shook her head. While a better response than she expected, it just deflected way, way too much. "It's more than that." She tried to smile and make it look convincing. "If I can tell when Taiki's not at his best, I can tell when something big is bothering you, I'd like to think."
Nene chuckled. "That's because Akari-kun is more perceptive than she gives herself credit for."
Akari flushed and almost missed Nene taking a few more steps. Then she bolted. "Don't distract me, Nene!"
"But it's ever so much fun," and she disappeared around the corner so fast it was unnatural, leaving the corridor empty but for her.
Akari's fingers closed around air and she sighed. Honestly, they were both fond of making her worry.
She went to chase after her. Two guesses where the older girl was going.