A/n: LORD if this wasn't a hard chapter to write! Sorry it's a bit short, but the next chapter is already in the wings, so hopefully soon... xoxo

"Tadaima! …Patamon?"

"Takeru!! Welcome home! Did you have fun?"

"Patamon! Look, I brought some fruit jelly back for you."

"Yay! Who did you go with? Hikari-chan?"

"…no, just some school friends. Here, you like strawberry, don't you?"

"Yep! Same as Tailmon, you know. I sure wish I could share this with Tailmon!"

"…"

"… are you not going to tell anyone, Takeru?"

"Don't say anything. Please. Just stay with me."

Tailmon peeked out of the line of well-kept bushes that rimmed the perimeter of the school building, the purple tips of her ears twitching as she scanned the area. Not nervous, per se—her character tended itself towards a certain discretion even on the best of days—but certainly careful. The current situation and what was at stake kept her constantly alert.

"Psst, Tailmon! Over here, over here!"

The voice came from above. She sprang deftly to the trunk of the nearby tree and then to the low branch that was just level with the second floor window, their usual meeting place. It happened to be shrouded from immediate view by a tuft of leaves, so it afforded the perfect place to observe what was happening in the adjacent classroom.

"Good to see you're still yourself, Patamon," she said.

"Yep! I feel okay!" Patamon had been curled up at the base of the branch, and he stood up now to trot towards her. "But this keeps happening lately, and I can't make it go away."

A quick turn revealed that his tail was ringed with black and red distortions of varying lengths that came and went. Giving his rump a good shake seemed to disperse them temporarily, but they came back in the next instant.

"Are those your only symptoms so far?" Tailmon asked.

Patamon nodded solemnly. "Takeru's really worried, though."

"He still hasn't told any of the others?"

"He doesn't want to."

She closed her eyes momentarily against the flitting distortions. There was a strange pull to them that she wanted to shut off. "I still think the others should know. They might be able to do something to help."

"I know that. I think so, too!" Patamon insisted. "But I… I don't want to do something Takeru doesn't want. Not when these might be the last few moments we have together."

There was no moving Patamon when he had his heart set, so she let it drop. Without a word, she scampered out to the edge of the branch, the closest she could get to the window without being seen.

"The last few moments, huh?" She gazed across the way where the afternoon's class was in session.

Hikari…

Her seat was the closest to the window, so Tailmon could see her clearly down to the minute expressions on her face. She sat up right and unmoving, her body flush with the back of her chair, eyes focused on the blackboard at the front of the room. The side profile of her face was entrancing. Tailmon couldn't remember the last time she had been able to just sit and study her partner's face. Clean, delicate lines and a youthful softness from the curve of her cheeks, but with an elegance that would not have been out of place in the royal courts of some era far gone by. How familiar that face was!

Tailmon shivered with a sudden sadness as she imagined that face fading out of her memory. She pictured herself sitting on the same branch, seeing that face through the classroom window and only being able to think about how lovely of a face it was. Like looking at one of the painted princesses on the hanging scrolls in the museum they had visited in the past. Beautiful, but of no significance to her.

"Oh, Hikari came to school today!" Patamon had joined her on the edge of the branch, interrupting her thoughts. The branch teetered a bit with the added weight, but they both knew from experience that it would hold.

"Yes. She seemed fine this morning, but I think there's still a lot that's bothering her," she replied.

"Was she okay yesterday?"

"She came to Koushirou's office to pick me up, but it was a lot earlier than usual, and she was with Yamato. I'm not sure why." After a short pause, she added, "She didn't say anything, though."

"Maybe she finished early! And she just ran into Yamato on the way there," he offered.

"Maybe…" she trailed off, not looking very convinced. "I didn't tell her about what happened with Homeostasis, but I think she has some idea. She can probably tell that something was there, in her mind."

Patamon's expression dampened a bit at this. "Looks like Hikari's going through a lot, too, huh?"

Tailmon noted in alarm that the snapping distortions surrounding her friend seemed to grow in intensity, and she quickly put a reassuring paw on his head. "I'm going to ask her if we can go shopping and get ice cream together later. Maybe that will cheer her up."

"Oh, I hope it does!" He brightened, lifting off the branch just a few inches and hovering there on his ears. "Speaking of which, Takeru brought home the most delicious fruit jelly yesterday!! Strawberry's your favorite, too, right??"

"On his way home from school?" She asked.

"Yup! He said he went to a new cafe with his friends after practice."

She frowned as she remembered what Hikari had said about not speaking to Takeru all weekend, about how even Yamato was seemingly getting the cold shoulder due to his busyness. "He had the time to do that?"

Patamon's eyes widened as he touched down on the branch again. The sharpness in Tailmon's stare was apparent but hard to place. "He said… he promised to go with a friend, and then some of his other friends ended up joining them."

"Hmm." Tailmon had turned abruptly to hide the realization in her expression, letting the flatness of her voice give the impression of neutrality. What had only been a suspicion before was now apparent—Takeru was actively avoiding Hikari and his own brother, and perhaps the rest of the chosen as well. So he really was intending to hide this thing until the bitter end.

"Is something wrong?"

"… I actually tried that fruit jelly. Sora and Biyomon came to visit on Sunday, and she brought some for everyone." A summer breeze set their branch on a slow sway.

"Did Hikari have some, too?"

"Yeah." She turned back to him and realized that his deep blue eyes were glistening wet with pent up emotion.

"Oh, that's good." A tear wormed down his cheek, but he grinned cheerily. "I think Takeru really wanted to go with Hikari."

This surprised her. "He said so?"

"No," Patamon shook his head. "I can tell, though. But he can't because he's scared, and it's… it's all because of me, because I got like this."

He wasn't afraid of death. It was Takeru he couldn't let go of—the tear-streaked face that hadn't changed all these years, that he would do anything to protect it. Even if, in the end, he would have no choice but to make Takeru sad.

"Takeru doesn't want me to fight, but I have to. I have to do something. You understand me, don't you Tailmon?"

She didn't respond, but he knew she did.

A faint tinkling sound made him look up. Dangling from Tailmon's paw was a silver object tied onto a looped piece of pink cord that was fraying gently at the ends.

"That's…" he gasped in recognition.

She held the familiar object aloft, arm outstretched, as if in defiance of something. As he stared at the glinting silver dancing at the end of its cord, he suddenly found himself terrified that it would slip through her paw and be carried away somewhere by the wind. But her grip on it was firm; it spun and twinkled in the dappled light.

"You still had it all this time?" He asked.

"Of course. Who do you take me for?" To his relief, she brought her arm down and gazed at the object with a beloved intensity. "Every time we've had to part ways with Hikari and the others, we've never known when we would see each other next."

"Tailmon?" He had never seen her make such an expression.

"I always told myself that if I hold onto this, it'll bring us together again."

He blinked. The notion that Tailmon, who was rational and calm, who always seemed to know exactly what to do, would put her hope in something so wispy and superstitious was bewildering.

"But wherever did you keep it? Do you have a secret pocket somewhere??" It wouldn't have been Patamon without the odd spurt of curiosity.

"Trade secret," she snapped, but she couldn't hide her smile.

She breathed in and gathered a little bit of air in her cheeks, bringing her mouth to the end of the silver object. As she leaned forward and exhaled ever so gently into the spigot, a soft trilling filled the spaces between the rustling leaves around them.

And she remembered what Hikari had confided in her many years ago about the treasured object that had helped her when she was young.

"It said what I couldn't put to words. All of the beautiful and difficult and precious things."

It was what they needed now. Let it say the things we believe deep down inside but can't explain.

"It sounds so beautiful," Patamon murmured, twisting his head to follow the breeze that carried the sound away.

It was like the whistle of the stationmaster that he'd heard once before, when he visited the countryside with Takeru and Yamato. Sitting perched on Takeru's lap as they waved goodbye to their grandma, the train pulling away to its next destination. A new beginning.

When Meicoomon showed up, it was far too soon. Koushirou still had not come up with any answers or a solution to the infection. But the chosen and their partners came anyway, possessed by a sense of duty.

At surface level, they all knew that the goal was to try to subdue Meicoomon enough to help her. They would need to buy time until Koushirou could at least come up with a stopgap measure, but no one knew what would come next. No one wanted to think about what would happen if he couldn't do it, so they didn't.

The self-fulfilling prophecy, the mighty invincibility of youth, the belief that emotions like passion and hope could actually physically get in there and solve all the problems of the world—these had long gone from them.

There had been no concept of failure back then. But the path to adulthood only continued to draw back the curtains of that ideal world to the bitter reality that sometimes the good guys fail. Sad things happen.

Koushirou knew this. He was no hero. He was just a high schooler with above average intelligence who knew how to work a computer. Not much different from when he was younger, when he would lug his laptop around like a crutch. Hiding himself behind it. Letting it do the talking.

But it was during their first adventure that his crutch had become his greatest strength. One of their most important weapons, irreplaceable in their struggle.

There were suddenly so many things that only he could do, and he had to admit that the feeling of being useful and wanted was a relief at first. And as the years went on, this went from being a feeling of relief to a sense of quiet confidence and duty.

He was no hero, but there was something he could do.

So when Tentomon finally caved and told him about the reboot, he tightened his backpack with his laptop firmly to his shoulders like it was a sword and ran.

Hikari watched the battle with mounting dread. The general consensus of the group seemed to be that things could not get any worse, based on the tensed shoulders and horrified expressions all around. But even as Meicoomon digivolved again and became progressively more feral, she couldn't curtail this feeling that this wasn't the worst of it. Like they had overlooked a vital piece of information, a tiny undetectable flaw in a sea of codes and data that had rolled past them and was lost forever in the waves.

Tailmon stirred in her arms. "Hikari."

She looked down into the eyes that gleamed cold like ice but that to her were always warm, reassuring. An unspoken understanding passed between them.

The determination in her partner's face was what allowed Hikari to nod and free her partner from her grasp despite the mounting dread. She watched Tailmon go, silent.

Immediately Patamon was struggling against Takeru beside them.

"No, Patamon!" Takeru sobbed, with a pitch of despair so deep that it frightened her.

"I have to go! I can't just sit here and not do anything," Patamon insisted.

"But you're… you'll…" His breaths came ragged. He held his partner to his chest with the hapless fervor of a frightened child clinging to his stuffed animal.

"You think so too, don't you, Takeru? That's why you came, isn't it?" Despite being scared. Despite everything.

Patamon knew Takeru was stronger than he gave himself credit for. They would overcome this, together. And then they would have to go their separate ways for a little while, but they would find each other again eventually. He believed it.

The orange Digimon glanced back for just a moment and caught Hikari's eye. It was brief, brief enough that it could have just been imagined, but a rush of warmth flooded her, and she understood instantly. Patamon was leaving Takeru up to her.

He had made his decision, like Tailmon and the other Digimon before him. And it was up to them as the Digimons' partners to respect and stand by their decisions.

Patamon broke free from Takeru's weakening arms to flutter in the air. "It's our job to protect your world, Takeru," he said, matter-of-fact.

He flew up, then stopped to give them all a smile that was backlit by the cruelly bright sky.

"I'll be back!"

Hikari knew what would happen.

The instant Patamon flew off, she leapt towards Takeru with her arms outspread. He rammed into her with a painful force that radiated throughout her torso and knocked the breath right out of her. Despite the pain, she hung on, bracing her entirety against his blind desperation, her arms tangling with his. How could she stop him? He had far outgrown her. Gone were the days when she could peek at the top of his head and grasp hands that were about the same size as hers. She tried with all that she was to receive him in his fear and brokenness, but she could feel his momentum taking them over, her heel grinding against the sidewalk.

Strong, ready arms came around both of them before they could fall. Nishijima-sensei.

It had happened so fast that catching them could not have been possible—unless he was prepared.

There was a grim trace of regret to his expression as he steadied them.

"Keep a tight hold of him," he told her softly.

She did. As they watched on, things did indeed take a turn for the worse.

"Something's wrong," someone cried.

No, no, no.

Angemon, their first triumph against the darkness. Their paragon of hope. The solemn regality of his masked visage was wracked with mindless spasms and anguished moans. He reeled up and swung at Angewoman brutally with his staff, smashing her into the ground.

Hikari paled. Her cry died in her throat. All she could remember was the way Takeru's voice had caught over the phone many nights ago while reading his record of their fight with Devimon.

"No… Angemon…"

Takeru crumbled. She was prepared again, dropping down and ignoring the rough concrete ripping into her knees, to hang on with him through this thing that was his worst nightmare. He had been the one there with her all this time, holding her hand, calling her back. Now she was determined to do the same for him.

"Takeru-kun." She willed her voice into a tether.

In the pocket of the distortion, Angewomon mirrored her, pulling herself upright and locking her arms around Angemon in an attempt to bring him back.

"Angemon is…" someone else said in disbelief.

It was a losing battle.

When the Digimon started getting infected one after the other, Hikari realized she was finally seeing the culmination of the stirrings of dread she had felt earlier. No, from the very beginning. She beheld the unfolding sequence as if from a distance, feeling the trembling in her arms that was Takeru, and tightened her grip both to comfort him and to keep him there with her.

Everything made sense now. Takeru's strange pattern of avoidance. The feeling that something had possessed her and gone. Tailmon's recent insistence that they go to the mall to get ice cream every day after school. And the missing piece they had overlooked.

Not that it mattered. It wouldn't change the fact that there would be sadness this day.

She could feel it in the recesses of her mind—a negative response to the infected Digimon that raged before them, a remnant of the consciousness that had inhabited her before. It wasn't an emotional response.

It was a sterile one. A clean rejection, like a security system being presented with a virus to eradicate.

Koushirou and Tentomon's arrival only confirmed this realization. He was breathing hard.

"What are you talking about? What is this reboot?" Takeru spat as Koushirou finished his explanation, volatile.

The others were stunned. Only Taichi seemed to take this information in with grim expectation.

No one would escape this purge unscathed. Things had slowly been building towards this point of tragedy that none of them could avoid.

And yet, Hikari still allowed herself to hope.

When Tailmon had left earlier to join the fight, there was an odd sadness that Hikari couldn't place at first, but there was no sense of finality. It hadn't been a farewell. Patamon's last words had sealed the thought in stone for her—the Digimon had gone into the fight believing that no matter what happened, they would see their partners again.

I'll be back!

She turned. Koushirou had silently pulled his laptop out and joined it on the ground. There was still time. The tears were still all being swallowed and had not yet spilled.

No, I can't give up. Not when the answer is right in front me.

"I'm going to create a safe space to preserve the Digimon and their memories," he rambled subconsciously, like he could only spare a small part of his mind for talking. "That should spare them from the reboot."

Of course, there was a lot that he wasn't sure about. Would they make it in time? Would the space really be exempt from the reboot? Would it be enough? It didn't matter. Whatever mighty blade that had rend the darkness into pieces in their past had long rusted over. It was not his to wield, so he would have to make do with his own.

The chosen watched him in awe from behind as he worked, starkly cutting the same figure he always had. Working away on the keyboard with his hands, his eyes locked on the screen, seeing and hearing nothing else.

The quiet hero.

A harrowing cry came to them from behind. Kabuterimon. The only Digimon with the facility to speak, he flew at this friend and that, trying to pierce through the veil of insanity. "Come to your senses, all of you!!"

Koushirou was unmoving.

To protect everything we've loved. To undo all of the curses. It seemed to Koushirou as he waged war on his keyboard that he was nine again, somehow both simultaneously out of his depth but also exactly where he knew he should be. His fingers were just able to make the long leaps up between keys as he typed. He searched desperately with small hands for something that would be enough to keep everything safe. It was out there somewhere. He just had to find it, dig it up out from the murk of the unknown and into knowledge. That was the one gift he had been given.

Hikari watched the intense focus in Koushirou's face. There was no doubt about it—he would do it. He would find that tiniest blip in the code that they had all believed was lost, and he would set it right.

Golden light erupted from the distorted space, and they were all robbed of their vision momentarily. When it returned, a gigantic gleaming Digimon stood before them, enrobed in a sleek armored shell.

"That's…" Jou breathed.

"Koushirou-kun," Mimi said.

Only Koushirou seemed unaware, unable to be aware, of what had happened in the force of his effort. His eyes stayed fixed on the screen.

HerculesKabuterimon charged toward the rampaging Digimon with all his arms outstretched and cleaved a golden arc across the sky. He heaved them together even as they fought and kicked against him, trying to shoulder them all, to contain them all in his own two arms and propel them to safety.

Like his partner.

He knew where the space was that Koushirou had set up without being told—an iridescent and vibrating six by six cube that spun just beyond them. Just outside of the distortion.

Don't let go. Don't you let go.

"All of you…" he grunted. "Are you really okay with saying goodbye like this?"

The memories flashed by even as he said this, and for a moment, it seemed as if the others could hear him. But he strained, and the fever of the infection overcame them again. His trembling rear legs slipped on the ground and lost traction. The cube spun wildly out of reach, reminding him vaguely of the refractions in a kaleidoscope Koushirou had excitedly shown him in years past.

And he recalled the slightly bashful look on his young partner's face as he admitted, "I know it's a simple thing in my head—I know exactly the rules by which it works. But why does it still excite me to look inside?"

Slowly, the refracted squares and diamonds were growing further and further away. No, not further. Smaller. The darkness closed in, and he closed his eyes.

Thank you Koushirou-han. I'll see you later.

Koushirou looked up abruptly, eyes finally locking on HerculesKabuterimon. There was a cathartic sort of break in his expression, his tensed shoulders dropping, brow relaxing in this final moment. They'd done what could be done.

The countdown stopped, and his laptop glowed red with the merciless words.

Reboot complete.

Perhaps looking away would have saved them some pain, but no one was able to. The chosen bore witness as the treasured memories of their youth disintegrated into a cluster of cubes that merged together into a single, gleaming point and then vanished, leaving clean nothingness.

They all stared into the sinking sun as Takeru sobbed in Yamato's arms behind them.

"Seriously, I'm pretty excited for the movie tomorrow. Maybe because I've finally read the source material for once." Ran swung her legs back and forth against the plush velvet train seat. "Did you finish the fourth book, Hi-chan?"

"A few days ago. I'm curious how they're planning on handling the ending with that dream sequence," Hikari answered.

"I was thinking the same thing!! We'll have to see what Mami-chan thinks tomorrow. She was rather harsh on the last one."

Their train slowed as it pulled into the station.

"I think Fujioka-kun is coming too, by the way," Ran reported with a keen look on her face.

"Is he?" Hikari stood, shouldering her bag.

"Mami-chan invited him. Apparently, he's a big fan of the series, too."

"Hehe, detective Ran-chan."

"Just trying to bring some utility to my inherent nosiness. See you tomorrow!"

Hikari waved at her friend as she stepped out of the train car and made her way through the heavy summer crowd in the station out to the street. Summer break had been oddly normal. The days had gone by sluggishly, and everything came to Hikari somewhat out of focus, as if in a haze. Things happened. She woke up, ate, spoke to Taichi in passing, hung out with her friends, slept.

To her knowledge, none of the chosen had met up or spoken since the reboot.

She walked through the glass doors of the towering office complex and felt the blast of air conditioning chill the mugginess from outside, clearing her mind somewhat. By the time she got to the embossed mahogany door, she was completely alert. She knocked briefly before pushing the door open and peeking inside.

"Hikari-san! Come in." Koushirou stood at his desk. The circles under his eyes were staying firmly put, but he had a not-too-weary smile on his face.

"Hi Koushirou-san." Hikari handed him a small lunch box tied in an orange furoshiki and a cold bottle of oolong tea. "This isn't much, but please eat it. I'm sure you haven't been eating very well."

He sighed and accepted the food, noting that the furoshiki belonged to Taichi. "Thank you. I'm sorry you have to see me like this. I should be more reliable."

She shook her head slowly, perching on the edge of one of the leather armchairs. "I think we'd all agree that none of what we've done so far would have been possible without you."

Koushirou was silent as he sat on the opposite side of the table, but she could tell what he was thinking.

That shining silhouette of brilliance, the hero of their childhood who had successfully led them to victory. No one had thought he could follow in those footsteps. Heck, even he hadn't. But he couldn't deny the tiny speck of hope that maybe, somehow…

"I'll see you later."

Hikari looked up at his sudden vocalization. "Yes?"

"Tentomon… no. HerculesKabuterimon. That's who he was, right? I saw him, at the very end. That's what he said to me."

His eyes fixed upon hers, and she felt a sense of confirmation as she took in how bright they were still, how able, ringed though they were by the marks of his physical fatigue. Which was just as well—she certainly hadn't come to console him.

So she cut to the chase. "Koushirou-san, I think we'll see the Digimon again."

These were the exact words he had been waiting to hear, but he seemed to have some trepidation about accepting them in full hope. "I had the same hunch, but I couldn't explain it in a way that made sense."

"I thought about it, too. The Digimon seemed so sure."

"You mean…?"

"I was with Takeru-kun when Patamon joined the fight."

"I see." The gleam of excitement in Koushirou's eyes subdued at their mention. By now, all of the chosen had deduced what had been going on with Patamon in the days leading up to the reboot.

"After a while, I guessed that it wasn't that they were absolutely sure. Otherwise, I don't think they would have been so desperate… to stop the reboot." Her heart churned as she pictured the way HerculesKabuterimon had fought valiantly to the last second. "The only other conclusion was that the Digimon weren't going to let notions of possible or impossible dictate our relationship."

"You're saying that we have some sort of agency in this situation?"

She shrugged. "Circumstance. Time and memories that begin and then fold into each other and then come to pass. The Digimon just believed—believe—that what holds us together goes beyond those things." Her voice dropped as she remembered the clear iciness of Tailmon's eyes. "And I want to believe the same thing."

Koushirou let out a long breath, and his shoulders dropped. "If that's true… we should be able to go find them. In the Digital World."

"There's nothing that will stop us if we choose to do so."

The vague sadness in her expression bothered him. "If we choose to?"

"There's no guarantee that the Digimon will have any recollection of who we are. That may be a reality too painful for some of us to accept. At least not right away," she murmured, and Koushirou knew she was thinking of Takeru.

"It will take some time, then," he said.

Hikari stood and made her way to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk, standing at the exact spot she had the day after Leomon's death. Once again, the hustle and bustle of activity, the muggy but entrancing summer heat, seemed worlds away. A train on the same line she had arrived on pulled away from the station below. She could see it picking up speed as it went, and she willed herself on it, seeing herself borne away, away…

She turned back to Koushirou. "They'll call us again, I'm sure of it."

The Digimon had always been stronger than them.

Koushirou seemed to register this as well. "What can we do?" He asked seriously.

At this, Hikari smiled and returned to the leather armchairs, leaning over to open the lunchbox she had brought for him. Kelp and bonito rice balls and steamed eggplant and fried karaage chicken—nutritious and filling, what was left of the lunchbox she made for her brother to take to soccer practice.

His nose twitched at the array of smells though he had scarcely thought of food since the reboot.

"Just be ready to go when the time comes," she said.

He returned the smile and accepted the chopsticks she held out to him. "I suppose it's a bit foolhardy of me to try to fight on an empty stomach."

Hikari left him then to eat and mull things over in peace.

This is good, he thought as he munched, feeling that he would need to add eggplant to his list of favorite foods. He ate slowly as his mind began turning over everything he would need to do to prepare them for their return to the Digital World. He would enjoy it thoroughly—it was probably the last proper meal he would have, at least for a short while.