Hida Hiroki was lucky enough to get a soft landing; he found himself lying on his back and covered in snow. He was deeply disoriented, and it took him a few minutes to realize the rock cropping buried in the snow beside him was actually Gotsumon's foot; once he did, he dug frantically to get his digimon out.

"I'm made of rocks, you know. I don't actually need to breathe," Gotsumon reassured him.

"Where are we?" There was something familiar about this tundra, admittedly. But he saw no sign of Angemon or the Ice Sanctuary, no matter how far he stared in every direction.

"This should still be Freezeland," Gotsumon said. "Guess MetalSeadramon sent us flying as far north as possible without sending us into the Net Ocean. Or does the Net Ocean freeze in this part of File Island?"

"Are we at the North Pole?" Hiroki asked.

"What's a North Pole?"

"Never mind." It was not lost on Hiroki just how different a digimon's logic and worldview were from his own; so much of what he had long thought of as common sense was simply absent here, and it wasn't like his partner was dumb – even if he had rocks for brains. "Well, let's explore."

"Just like last time!" Gotsumon found the snow nostalgic. Hiroki, however was concerned – would IceDevimon attack them again? And if not, were there other virus digimon roaming around that would be too powerful for the two of them? He could barely see anything in this snowstorm. It was the kind of situation where he'd normally ask Oikawa for advice. Except Oikawa wasn't here; Hiroki wasn't even certain that he was still alive. At least, if he had landed safely with Floramon, he was old enough and knew the world well, so he could probably fare for himself.

But what about the kids?

He had to find them as soon as possible. But he had no idea where to look, and none of the YukimiBotamon or Penmon he stopped to ask after had seen anything remotely like a human before. After hours of searching, he eventually ran into a hooded figure. One who looked almost like Gennai, if Gennai wore brown robes, carried a book twice his size, and had a pure black, golden-eyed digimon face under his white hood.

"I don't know much about humans, but if any got lost around here, I think Mojyamon village is where they would end up. I'm headed there myself to present some important research, so feel free to tag along," the digimon said.

It felt odd for Hiroki to travel with no one but Gotsumon beside him, and this digimon, whoever he was (he was reticent on giving his name) had a way of comforting him by his very presence. So he followed, listening all the way to discoveries he could not truly understand.

Most of the population of the digital world, in this time period, was scattered into a large number of villages, while smaller numbers of high level digimon lived solitary lives in the wilderness. Typically, these villages were concentrated around an obvious source of digimon food, but the site of Mojyamon Village is too cold for meat or plants to grow.

This was a mystery, not a crisis; the various ice digimon Hiroki met once he arrived were perfectly well-fed. He wished he still had the cloak from Angemon with him, the one made of Pidmon feathers; he was shivering in his school uniform, and few buildings were large enough to house a human traveler.

Mojyamon, the village's namesake, looked like a little man, or maybe a dwarf or a bear; the digimon would've been the shortest kid in Hiroki's school, but Hiroki did not tower over him the way he did child level ones. White hair or fur covered his entire body, except for his hands and feet, which looked bare but had to share some qualities with gloves to not have already broken off from frostbite.

"Welcome, travelers. We are honored that you have decided to pay our humble village a visit." Mojyamon said.

"My research was for your benefit," Wisemon responded. "I believe that, once it is understood, it will make life significantly easier here."

Hiroki felt embarrassed about arriving in their settlement with nothing of his own to offer, especially by comparison to the digimon he had met along the way. Yet, still he had no choice but to ask, "Have you seen any other humans here?"

"No, nor have I even heard word of them, as of late," Mojyamon apologized. "I believe some of them purified Pidmon, but that was some time ago and they are surely long gone by now."

"One from that group has returned," Hiroki said with a smile, almost a chuckle, "but I remain greatly concerned about the status of my companions."

"I'll let you know if I hear anything," Mojyamon assured him. "This village is remote, and the road south is long. Why don't you stay for now?"

"At least stick around long enough for the big presentation," a Penmon chimed in.

A white torii marked the village entrance, which might have easily been mistaken for abandoned or out-of-place architecture, but which technically marked the patch of snow where they stood as a shrine.

An Ikkakumon surfaced near the ice floes, carrying a bucket of fish in its mouth. Digimon gathered around it, either bribed by the food or curious about the traveler's message; Mojyamon himself came to the stage to introduce him.

"Give a round of applause for our visiting scholar, Wisemon!" The digimon all cheered, and the Gomamon and Penmon who made up most of the crowd were even capable of genuine clapping.

"Thank you, thank you. I have discovered a method to grow Deluxe Mushrooms, and I truly believe that in the snow of Freezeland I have found the key to saving the rest of the digital world."

Wisemon flipped through his book to grab his notes, when he was suddenly interrupted by a spear from the deep.

"Strike Fishing!" A harpoon soared through the cold air from beneath the water, in the direction where Ikkakumon had surfaced. It first pierced Wisemon's book, and then his stomach; he was taken completely by surprise from this attack. Two more followed – one struck Wisemon through the head, while the other hit Mojyamon in his round center, while a horrified Hiroki stood motionless, frozen in shock.

"Grab the book!" a Gomamon shouted, and Hiroki soon leaped into action to salvage what he could. He could've sworn that his outstretched hand was about to touch it, but he waited too long, and his reflexes were simply too slow.

The book, and with it, whatever Wisemon had discovered, disintegrated with their owner, censored by Hangyomon's attack.

Mojyamon fared no better. Was he a target too, or was he just standing close enough for Hangyomon's miss to hit him instead? The technique used had been long range – was it a case of pinpoint accuracy, or simply a lucky shot?

"Gotsumon, shinka! Golemon! Golemon, chou shinka! Orochimon!"

At the time, all Hiroki felt was rage and wrath – at the Hangyomon, for committing these murders, and at himself, for not being able to stop them. The concept of a dark evolution was still one for the future, but whatever unease he had ever felt at being partnered with a virus digimon had vanished – all he was thinking was that eight heads were more than enough to devour three Hangyomon.

The villagers themselves scattered inland; digimon disintegrate on death, so there were no bodies to mourn over, and they couldn't know if more attacks were coming from below. Orochimon dipped beneath the waves, while Hiroki stood at an ice floe, staring at the water, trying in vain to see what was going on.

A few minutes later, Orochimon emerged, gripping one Hangyomon in his mouth; two more emerged onto land and hurled their own spears, trying to rescue their comrade, but they pierced the wrong necks.

It suddenly occurred to Hiroki that he had sent his digimon out to fight three perfect level opponents, that he had a real reason to be concerned about whether Orochimon could actually win. One head was occupied, two more were down, and righteous anger alone was no guarantee of victory. At least this confirmed there were only three enemies, and not even more hiding in the deep, cold sea.

It is very easy for a white digimon to move unseen on the Freezeland ice, and all that Hiroki – or the Hangyomon, for that matter – noticed was a strange purple 'rock'. Only when her Bao Kui blocked a harpoon with her own spear of light did Hiroki even realize he had an ally.

The digimon reared up, her white hood outlined with enough green and gold to be recognizable as a cobra, and invoked the name of "Krishna!" as she impaled and dissolved the other Hangyomon. The one remaining frog-fish dove into the water, as Orochimon feasted on the digimon who was already in his jaws.

They had won the fight. But they hadn't protected anyone – what would become of the village with Mojyamon gone? Wisemon was a good guy, a traveling companion, maybe even a friend. But his book had disintegrated with him, and avenging him wouldn't bring him back. If he had truly been avenged; it was very possible that the one Hangyomon who escaped had been the one who threw the fatal spear.

So what good was victory?

Hiroki had been so lost in this thought that he forgot to introduce himself to the digimon who had teamed up with him, the very reason that they hadn't been utterly defeated. He didn't mean to, but he'd been so rude today.

"Hello. My name is Sandiramon," the snake digimon said. "I thank you for bringing justice upon one of the Hangyomon who defiled the shrine I am sworn to protect."

"You're welcome – and thank you as well, I'm not sure my partner could have won that battle alone. I'm Hiroki, and this is... Gotsumon now," he said. His partner had quickly devolved and passed out once his enemies were gone, undoubtedly in part because they had taken two of his heads with them.

"You must be the candidate," Sandiramon said. "Welcome to the Xuanwu Shrine."

"Candidate? Shrine?" Hiroki was puzzled.

"Pass this trial, and your digimon can evolve to the next level," Sandiramon explained. "But by all means, rest before you begin; I had not expected the Hangyomon would be so bold as to try attacking this place, and I understand that the battle must have taken a lot out of you and your partner."

In truth, Hiroki was restless. Just staying here made him antsy – not to mention cold. Actually, not to mention cold – he hadn't noticed at the time, but he had stopped shivering the moment he passed through the white torii, and the snow here felt more like a white, fluffy, and comfortable bed. Yet it was hard to just remain at the very place that Wisemon and Mojyamon had been shot, without even having anything to do to take his mind off that memory.

But Gotsumon was out cold, and what could he do alone? So Hiroki waited and watched over his digimon, trying to pass the time until his partner recovered.

Hida Hiroki had fully expected his "trial" to be a battle, and had even gone so far as to look over Sandiramon's body in a (failed) search for some kind of weakness. "Hiroki, Gotsumon, are you ready?" Sandiramon asked politely.

"Think so," Hiroki said, and turned to his digimon partner.

"Don't I need to evolve up to Orochimon first?" Gotsumon asked.

"It should not be necessary," Sandiramon assured them.

"Okay then." Gotsumon was certainly puzzled, but perhaps there was a reason for it – if Sandiramon wasn't the opponent, for instance, maybe Orochimon wasn't the correct evolution and he'd have to become Revolmon again.

"In that case, let your trial begin. Answer me this one question: What did Wisemon know?"

If the battle with the Hangyomon was any guide, Orochimon was simply not Sandiramon's equal in combat; the snake guardian deity had easily taken out two of them, but his partner had struggled mightily to defeat only one. And yet Hiroki soon found himself wishing that Sandiramon had simply challenged them to a digimon fight; it would surely be easier than this.

Hiroki didn't know. How could he? Wisemon had wisdom in his very name, and a massive book that let him overcome the limitations of his own memory. Hiroki had never read even a word of that text and struggled to understand everything Wisemon had talked about on the way into town.

"Think, Hiroki, think." It wasn't really his own conscience speaking, but his partner digimon, although it was at times easy to confuse the two.

"She doesn't expect us to have memorized Wisemon's book, right?" Gotsumon asked. Sandiramon neither confirmed nor denied this; she'd been silent since the trial began.

"If she does, this is all over. But I don't think she just wants us to repeat Wisemon's summary, either; I think she was already listening in the crowd," Hiroki said, "I don't think she cares that much about Deluxe Mushrooms, for that matter."

"Maybe she does. Her shrine's basically in Mojyamon village... well, I guess that place will have a new name now. Feeding the digimon here isn't something to overlook." Gotsumon said.

"But we don't have any clues for that part," Hiroki answered. "So what if we went the other direction? Some kind of key beneath the snow..."

He began digging, and Gotsumon evolved into Golemon to help out; he could dig way faster than any human. Hiroki was thinking about the unfinished projector back in the place where they had once met Gennai, but even if they somehow completed it, how could that device protect the digital world?

The fact that the sky was blue here, and so was the water, struck him as a clue. A clue, not an answer, and "it's too cold" could not easily be generalized to elsewhere.

"Did he want everyone to evacuate? But how would all the digimon get enough to eat?" Golemon asked.

"Well, maybe that was what the Deluxe Mushrooms were for," Hiroki thought aloud, "but food wouldn't protect digimon from whatever's up here, let alone the Dark Masters..." Freezeland itself was safe from the curse on the rest of the Digital World, but was still under a messed-up sky, and the net ocean was still cursed and black wherever it didn't freeze.

"Maybe Wisemon's whole plan was flawed?" Golemon wondered. It was a depressing answer. Too depressing for Hiroki to accept; the old traveler's confidence had rubbed off on him.

Golemon's knuckles finally hit rock, but if they wanted a literal magic key, they were disappointed. It was just a plain slab, with no mysterious ancient symbols or anything.

Hiroki remained deep in thought. Might it be in a different part of the village, not inside the shrine? That was almost unfair. But what if...

Wisemon had located the two of them in the middle of a snowstorm and brought them together to Mojyamon Village, on the day he was going to give his presentation. What if that wasn't a coincidence? After all, they were taking this test to gain the power to save this world.

"Evolution beyond the Perfect level. Wisemon must have known something about it – I don't know the specifics, but I'm sure that whatever he was working on involved getting Orochimon to evolve," Hiroki suggested.

"Bingo," Sandiramon answered, and coughed up a beige jewel, which rolled over to Golemon in the snow.

"Golemon, kyuukyoku shinka! Xuanwumon!"

Oikawa Yukio awakened on a carefully prepared bed of leaves. A red beetle digimon hovered over both him and Floramon, watching over them with concern. "You two okay? Just a few feet to the left and I think you'd have been goners," the Tentomon asked.

"Well I didn't devolve beyond Child," Floramon said.

"My back hurts, but I'll be fine," Oikawa added.

Oikawa opened his eyes, looked around, and found the place remarkably familiar; it was the same forest he had been in when he first entered the digital world. Floramon looked at home with all the plant digimon nearby; the Alraumon jumping around might even have been a distant relative. Whatever that meant. He still didn't understand how digimon were related, how they reproduced, how their genetics worked – he had so many questions about this world. Everything was so fascinating; he wished he could explore it in an era without all this chaos.

The sky was still black and broken, but Floramon, despite being a plant, hadn't starved, hadn't complained once about hunger. DigiMushrooms still grew, meat was sometimes lying around; on Earth, no sun would mean famine, but here it was just a disturbing backdrop.

There was so much he could not even begin to understand. What he did know was that he was lucky to be alive. "Thank you, Tentomon."

"I didn't do that much; you're the ones who crashed out of the sky into my bed."

"Sorry about that." Oikawa got out and piled the leaves back up as best he could; this digimon had done more than he was willing to take credit for, and Oikawa didn't want to inconvenience him any more than he absolutely had to.

He picked up a small insect digimon while putting back the leaf pile, whom he had mistaken for a pinecone. Was it a larva? A child? A younger sibling? Surprised by its face, he let the Minomon go, then put some more leaves over it to try to tuck it in.

This was a peaceful place. But the world is always nicer before one gets out of bed.

At the time of the original chosen children's adventure, the Unwavering Forest was not only the largest forest on File Island, but perhaps the largest single region in the entire digital world. This may come as a shock to modern audiences, but the familiar Digital World of continents and islands which we all know, strewn throughout the Net Ocean, did not exist yet.

Which was to say that the forest was big. Oikawa walked through it slowly and carefully, still remembering his experience with a Kunemon net and checking the ground for traps.

Was Hiroki okay? Was anyone? It was easy to imagine that MetalSeadramon's attack had launched the others all the way through the cracks in the sky, that they had returned to Earth or were wandering through even more other worlds. Realistically, if he was lucky to have landed on Tentomon's bed, then the others might not have survived the fall from that attack – but the phrase "realistically" did not mesh with anything he had seen of the logic of the digital world.

He missed them, and he hoped they were all alive and well on their own, wherever they wound up. Even with Floramon by his side, he was more cautious than ever, without Hiroki around to rescue him should anything go wrong.

The trails looked familiar, although he could not be certain if they really were the same ones he walked on last time, or if there are simply only so many ways to render a forest path. In time, he came to a break in the ground – what he would have liked to call a river, what might have even been one, once, but at this point in time the term 'break' was a far fairer description.

Oikawa peered into the black, but he did not even see water there anymore, no matter how tainted or corrupted; it was just a void, with a tall black obelisk at the center of the distortion. He doubted even Ebidramon could traverse it, and was unwilling to allow his sole remaining companion to take that risk, despite Floramon's pleas. For a moment, he wished he had a partner who could fly.

But the forest was vast and most of it was unexplored, so there was no shame in turning and walking in a different direction. Oikawa caught a glimpse of a firebird overhead, and he followed, wondering if it was the same Birdramon who had given him a ride at the start of their journey, who they had left behind once they found too many children for it to carry. But the Birdramon was not facing him, and no amount of waving or shouting was enough to draw its attention.

The bird flew over a large red torii, which was not high enough to reach over the forest's trees, but whose color stood out strikingly against all the green of the region's scenery and its digimon. Birdramon slowed down. But it did not perch upon the gate, as Oikawa had often seen birds do on Earth, so as to avoid burning the whole thing down.

"It must be hard for that guy to find a place to rest around here," he thought aloud. But its flight solved the problem in a roundabout way; Birdramon changed shape upon flying over the torii,red becoming yellow, with a brilliant, multicolored tail and a purple ball of armor around its core. Oikawa recognized the process as evolution, but he had never witnessed it happening to a digimon without a partner.

If this was a holy site, if walking through it let his digimon reach the next level, then maybe there was a way to save the world after all.

Unfortunately, instead of a cute miko by the entrance, this one had a guard dog. Or lion-dog. Who was not a statue, but who was growling, and very much did not want Oikawa to enter.

"Do not defile this sacred place!"

The creature looked similar enough to the statues outside shrines (though not, ordinarily, right at the torii) that Oikawa almost believed it was the creature they depicted, but Shiisamon's mane was made of interlocking drills, and its horn had no real-life counterpart he had ever seen. And rather than stone, brilliant yellow clouds rested atop its pure white fur.

"Why won't you let me in? I thought I was a Chosen Child, I was sent here to save this world; I mean you no harm."

"I can see a deep emptiness inside you," Shiisamon said. "Too old. Homeostasis chose... poorly."

It has long been unfortunately common, on the internet, to be surprised by someone hurling deeply cutting insults at you, seemingly at random. After enough maturity and enough time online, most people grow numb to such flames. Oikawa had not.

He would have liked to argue, would have liked to say Shiisamon was wrong. Instead, he was silent, stuck in his own head, wondering if the guard digimon was right. It was Floramon who made it into an argument.

"Do you have any idea what condition the digital world is in? Do you have any idea what's been happening outside your perfect little shrine?!"

"Of course I don't know, idiot!" Shiisamon roared back. "Guard dogs do not wander!"

"Then you don't know how hard this otherworlder has been working to protect this world, how his eyes light up whenever he discovers something new! If there's any human that belongs in the digital world, it's Oikawa Yukio!" Floramon turned to his lost-in-thought partner, angry, but waiting for a signal or a message from his digivice; partner digimon can not evolve without help.

"I... belong here?" Oikawa had never heard his own feelings stated so openly, having always assumed this was a quest, an aberration, that he'd be forced to go home someday. But he had never been so happy, so full of purpose and wonder on Earth.

"I want to see this world when the firewall's repaired and everything's been restored. And I'll do whatever it takes to get to that point. If that's not enough to satisfy you, if that makes me 'empty', then I'm sorry. But as long as I'm still here, I'm ready to fight to save the digital world!"

"Floramon, shinka! Togemon! Togemon, shinka! Triceramon!"

"You've grown so angry at my insults that you'd attempt to force entry? Well, show me what you can do – no dark evolution has the power to enter the Zhuqiao Shrine!"

"If you want a fight," Triceramon roared, stomping the ground, "then bring it on!"

"Sekkantou!" Shiisamon did not want a fight, per se; what the digimon wanted was to keep Oikawa and Triceramon out. To that end, it created a golden wall of light, a firewall in miniature, which spanned the gates of the torii without burning its wood.

"Defeat the attacker and the attack will disappear!" Triceramon was ready to charge, only for his partner to hold him back. Oikawa walked slowly, carefully up to the wall, but felt no heat, and cautiously placed first a finger, then a hand, then his whole body through the light.

"Follow me, Triceramon. It's safe."

On the other side of the wall, near the entrance to the shrine grounds, Shiisamon had fallen sound asleep, a guard dog off duty. "That means we passed?"

"But I haven't evolved yet," Triceramon said. "Maybe this wasn't the key, after all."

The bird they'd followed there – now a Sinduramon – landed in front of the pair. "Welcome, Chosen Children. If you have passed Shiisamon's test, then I shall defer to its judgment, and together we shall bring about Zhuqiaomon."

The chicken's purple armor opened up, revealing a red sphere which rolled over to the other archosaur.

"How does a dinosaur become a bird?" Oikawa didn't realize until after he spoke what he had just said, how long scientists had puzzled over, then answered, that very question – but then again, birds came from theropods, did they not? Not a herbivorous dinosaur like a Triceramon.

"Jogress evolution," Sinduramon supplied an answer. "We merge and become the new beast god."

"Isn't something bad supposed to happen?" a concerned Oikawa said, holding his Triceramon closely... or at least his tail, given the digimon's size. "A great sacrifice shall save both worlds..." All of the manga he'd read about beast gods suggested this process would be a painful one, and the thought of his digimon merging into another was hard to bear. Was that the sacrifice?

"Don't worry about it," Triceramon assured him, lowering his head and motioning Oikawa over to the other side of his body to nuzzle him.

"And what about you, Sinduramon? Are you okay with fusing? You won't be yourself anymore..." Oikawa asked.

"It is your own heart that is preventing the jogress right now," Sinduramon said.

Uncontrollable tears flowed from Oikawa's eyes – not from the kind of sadness one gets over soon, but the kind from when one learns what will become a lasting source of sorrow, as he held his Triceramon close.

"You shed tears for us..." Sinduramon said. "To think that Shiisamon ever thought you unworthy."

"We'll still be there, inside Zhuqiaomon," Triceramon reassured him.

"Okay." Oikawa wiped his tears and steeled his heart.

"Triceramon!"

"Sinduramon!"

"Jogress shinka, Zhuqiaomon!"