ix. when i'm older i'll be silent beside you

The world around her is bathed in white again.

This time, she can't draw fast enough to erase it in between searches for any messages from her father, any instructions, basically anything at all. It doesn't matter, Binary Castle responds in a way the world couldn't do in her dream, walls growing and shrinking, pathways closing before Vitium could slam into them.

It's for the best she can't draw well, the perfectionism would be too distracting. Instead, she focuses on quick lines and curves to match her other desperately typing hand. There has to be something. There has to be something left of Norn.

The digital world would survive without Yggdrasil, that was true, but the digimon wouldn't necessarily, and unless Norn gave her that power, chosen ones just shouldn't be able to exist no matter how many partnered with humans. That was different. You chose yourself. So that there were kids who could find destiny and seize on it, there was still fate so-

There. A locked search, a gate with missing bits of code. BlackWarGreymon X lunges past her throne. Her body breathes. If Mirei closes her eyes, she can see it, the two tethers binding her and Vitium to one thing. One body.

She had to be careful. She had to time this right, or she was, if not dead, just as cursed to wandering as Vitium could be. Dad hadn't done all this so she could die twice.

She hacks at it with one hand. Then she grimaces, pain racing up where her tailbone would be if she could feel it.. Her hand reaches and she snags her cat by the scruff as debris and fire go screaming past. Well, at least she could grab her.

"That was dangerous," the cat starts. "But thanks."

"Mmhm." Meicoomon's crossed eyes rest on her as she focuses. "I've almost got it, I think. then we can send the coordinates to-"

"Why haven't you stopped this?"

Mirei blinks, cut off. "What do you mean?"

Meicoomon meets her confusion with annoyance. "You remember everything else, but not this. Not why you evolved me this way in the first place. Not why you made us this way. We can change fate now. We can make a miracle here. Why are you hesitating? Just give me power, Mirei."

Her fanged mouth splits with anger and not joy. "Give me the power, and I'll save us all."

Their parents are pissed.

Niko knew that going in. They'd be pissed and scared and hurt, that their children didn't trust them.

Outside, he glimpses Rina's green hair through the starry sea as he hears Taiga's mother rambling through computer code and grounding them for real and dad making complaints about how he did not design Rina to rebel like that before his mother complains that you didn't raise Niko like that either and what mess have they left behind seriously?

Yuuya's father is either silent or not there and it says a lot that Niko couldn't tell anyone which it was on sight because the man is just that much of an asshole.

There's no one to complain Akiho left. Akiho's parents were probably out looking for her because like, they gave a shit but didn't have the tec or coding specs to follow them without breaking out another ship. They'd only gotten away with this bus-ship thing because it was old and outdated and no one thought it ran anything more than the toilet and the microwave once in a while.

But they don't have time for this. He hears Sashenka bark and V.V curse (who taught him swears, oh right it was Yuuya) at something on screen that he can't decipher but digimon would know better than anyone else. he waves his hands though their parents can't see it. "Guys! You can be pissed later! We need to know how Taiga and Rina can use Decode!"

All the adults fall silent. "Is that why you left?" His father's words are like thunder and Niko fumes, boiling over like an overfull pot. "For that? That fluke of engineering. We've never gotten it to work!"

He hears Rina shout, a laugh and a cry of pain as something grabs for her hands. The synthetic flesh that coats her hands has been bitten off to silver metal as she whales on its back. It coughs and twitches, avoiding her and Black's sharp claws as they escape.

"I'm fine here," V.V calls. "Sashenka can help!"

"Don't!" Dad warns. "It's too many Digimon, there's more opportunity to absorb data! Just retreat and come home. We can handle this."

And this, of all things, is what makes Nikolai explode.

"When have you handled anything?"

the call falls silent but Niko continues. "When have you listened? Taiga's been saying it for years! Rina too! Maybe we're doing the wrong thing! But we have to do something, dad!"

"You don't have to!" He hears his father's anger and hurt and love and oh, he loves his dad too. But.

"We're already here!" he hollers. "It's too late now! So if you're not helping, I'm hangin up!"

Further silence.

Then Taiga's mother says, just loud enough to hear. "Send me your coordinates. You need dummy data to make it work fully."

"Bel!" Dad sounds pissed, which is great because it's not at them. "That's untested. The others- we don't know if it will work."

"Well it's that and they die or it's not that and they die." Her voice is ice calm. "And if we go now, we can make it. Flip the beacon Nikolai, we're coming."

"Yes ma'am." He releases Sasha as he does and the dog is off the ship and burning Niko's stamina like a torch in seconds.

Then he goes to Taiga, to get him to use his digivice's link function. But Taiga pays him no attention. All his attention is on the screen where Vitium is.

Where Vitium is glowing.

And Taiga's eyes glow red with it.