xi. and they won't need to know our names or our faces
Power is easy. Controlling it, guiding it is very hard. But that's fine. Mirei can do whatever is necessary in this moment. Even die.
Not that she wants to, but well, it's not much living like this, anyhow.
Mei pulls her warm, so warm paws away from her face, the last touch she may ever have and Mirei believes in her with all of her heart and soul in this moment, in the one her father trusted to keep her safe.
In the two who put everything on the line.
Meicoomon shines in answer, growing and growing until she could meet the incoming Vitium with shining claws. She holds firm, magic circles glowing on her body and pushes back.
Vitium howls, pain shaking through Mirei's bones but she doesn't stop working. She can't now. Rasielmon won't last long, not forever. They've never had that and-
"Rina!" V.V's voice is lower, rougher, but all the more sure. "I'm ready to pull you in!"
Rina takes Mirei's hand. "Ready?"
Mirei nods.
Rasielmon shoves Vitium back, back back into WarGreymon's claws as Mirei's pen vanishes, tablet shining with light.
Then, the castle drops, no longer suspended in the sea. Data flies apart from the outside in, chewing at the stone.
"Hold on!" Rina calls, but she's grinning madly up to the sky.
"What are they doing?" Niko shouts at the windows but Taiga ignores him. His eyes are squeezed shut in concentration, knuckles white on his digivice. Its bright screen searing his palm threatens to burn his bones, but he doesn't budge. He thinks of home at first, of mom laughing over the sink, her old clay pots smelling of something beautiful.
He misses home. Mirei must miss home too. That's why this is the path Mirei and Rina gave him
"Vitium incoming," Yuuya warns as the windows darken.
WarGreymon roars and slices at the data as the ship trembles.
Akiho's shout of alarm is their only warning before she slams the craft down, sliding away from the burst of light and heat.
Yuuya rolls out of the seat. "Go up Akiho. Now. As high as you can. Towards those two lights."
"Got it."
"We're leaving Rina," Niko protests.
"If we don't we can't do much else." The ship nose rises up and further up still, and they're rocketing vertically.
Vitium shrieks, but it's all white noise to Taiga. Everything fades away barring what he's focused on, on WarGreymon's movements, claws and fire and screaming, so much screaming. His ears ring with it, so loud they may start bleeding.
But he focuses. On home, on the distant place they'd abandoned, on the world he'd visited in a distant suit on a time limit. Green grass and data analytic blue skies, his mother's hands on his shoulders.
"Listen Taiga," His mother's voice had been calm, sure, utter faith and focus in a way that made his stomach burn. *"Vitium cannot last forever, not like this. The one we've been using is a stasis, easy little copy. It doesn't have the capability the further it gets from the host it took on. Having access to Decode will just make it able to delay the inevitable. You have to make that impossible and seal what's left of its core by keeping them as far apart as possible. Between you and Rina, there should be enough power to hold it steady."
Underneath his hand, his digivice cools. He holds it up and goes to the door. Niko grabs his shoulder as Taiga leans out.
"WarGreymon! Back in, hurry!"
His partner listens, he's always listened, even when Taiga didn't think he should be heard. Even when he'd doubted himself, Digimaru, his partner and friend, believed. And he believes now, shrinking as Taiga pulls him into the ship. Niko slams the door shut as Taiga races over to the console and plugs his digivice in.
It immediately sparks and Akiho yelps. Yuuya grabs hers and drops it into her lap. The color is back to his face and he's following the sounds of screams and the scrapes over metal. Claws and teeth bite into the door, threatening to carve into it.
Yuuya places his hands over Akiho's and they pull the wheel. Vitium spirals with a shriek and heat sizzles. Warning lights leap on screen.
"Niko." Taiga gasps. He's so tired now, all of a sudden, it's the final hour and he's so tired. "Help. Power. Anything."
Niko stares at him, at the world spinning too fast. Then he laughs. "Course dude. You always needed me to be the muscle."
They all laugh a little harder than they probably mean to. But Niko puts his hands over Taiga's digivice, and light flows from him. And from him, to them.
When Taiga had chosen, had trusted, his friends, he'd known every single one of them had something, something to carry them, something he could trust.
And Niko, he believed, had power, a brilliant blaze of it that if he just could let it fly, was unstoppable.
Taiga pulls himself back up and places his hand on top of Niko's. Niko shakes him off.
"Save your energy," he says dismissively. "We've gotta get the other two right? You and Yuuya relax. We've got this."
Yuuya scoffs and Taiga nods. Slowly. Surely. They get closer, and closer still.
Vitium wails. It cries like a child, fire and energy crashing into the ship and making it and them rattle. The ship creaks, as if to bend.
Then the window fills with light and Taiga swears he hears Mirei whisper.
"Thank you. Leave the rest to me now."