Two

The energetic knocking told Kari Kamiya who was at her door before she even opened it, finding a somewhat dishevelled and tired looking Davis on the other side who nevertheless flashed her a toothy grin and offered a wave, greeting her with, 'How you doing?'

'I'm fine,' Kari said. 'And you?'

'Alive,' Davis said before shrugging. 'My apartment got condemned, though.'

'I'm sorry to hear it,' Kari said, pausing, then added, 'Are you hoping to stay here?'

'Only if it's no trouble,' Davis said. 'I know Tai's off in the Digital World with Meiko and Joe, so I know his room's free.'

'You have seen the state of it, right?' Kari said.

Davis flashed her that toothy grin again. 'Who do you think taught me?'

Kari thought it for a moment then nodded and stepped to the side, saying, 'Come on in. My parents are on vacation, so it'll be nice to have someone around until things get back to normal.'

'My family's on vacation, too,' Davis said as he entered the apartment, shutting the door behind him as he slipped his shoes off. 'So is everybody else for that matter, now that I think about it. Was there a meeting or something that I missed where everyone agreed to head out at the same time?'

'If there was, then I missed out on it, too,' Kari said.

'I guess so,' Davis said.

He walked past Kari as she returned to the kitchen where she had been preparing herself an early lunch before his knocks had drawn her away, though it wasn't exactly anything fancy. The same earthquake that had condemned Davis's building had knocked the power out to hers, meaning she had no stove or oven with which to cook. It had also taken out the fridge and freezer as well, and while the frozen items might last until power was restored everything needed eating, and quickly.

'Have you eaten at all?' Kari said as Davis dumped himself down on the nearby settee, staring blankly at the darkened television set. 'I'm making sandwiches.'

'Sure,' Davis said. 'No power, huh?'

'Nope,' Kari said with a shake of the head. 'We have water though, so there's that.'

'It'll be cold, though,' Davis said.

'I forgot about that,' Kari said.

She shivered at the prospect of showering in cold water, only to remember it was almost the height of summer. The water wouldn't actually be all that cold and even if it was, it would feel like a blessing in the oppressive heat.

Davis hauled himself up from the settee and joined her in the kitchen, opening the fridge up to peer inside at its contents. There wasn't much though, the Kamiya household not exactly being big on home cooking, but there was enough to make it seem a waste to let it spoil and Davis stared at it for a long moment, thinking, then he said, 'Want me to make some ramen later? As thanks for taking me in.'

'No power, remember?' Kari said, going so far as turning the knobs on the stove to prove her point it wasn't working. 'Can't cook without it.'

'Didn't Tai buy some gas stoves a few years back?' Davis said. 'For that time he and Meiko went backpacking?'

'I think so,' Kari said, shrugging. 'If they're anywhere, they'll be in his room. If you dare explore the dark recesses of that cesspit.'

Davis grinned. 'Hey, I've got the Digi-Egg of Courage. I can brave any horrific scenario I find myself in, no matter what.'

With that he stood and disappeared inside Tai's room, emerging a few minutes later with two plastic cases that contained some camping stoves her brother had bought a year ago, for a romantic camping trip he had planned with Meiko in the forests around Mount Takao. At least, that had been the plan before bad weather forced them to spend most of the week cooped up inside the tent. Of course, that would have given them plenty of time to indulge in certain activities…

Kari stopped herself before she could finish that thought, a violent shudder overcoming her as Davis placed the cases on the counter next to the sandwiches she was making. He stepped back in alarm but she raised a finger towards him and said, 'Don't ask.'

'Okay,' he said, hands raised. 'Whatever you say.'

She shivered again then handed him his plate of food once it was ready, the two of them making for the living area to eat. Davis sprawled across one of the settees as he started in on his food, not so much eating it as he was swallowing it whole, a stark contrast to the more sedate pace of Kari who guessed he was ravenously hungry.

It then struck her as strange that ten years ago, maybe not even five, she wouldn't have imagined the pair of them being able to sit and eat a meal like this together in relative peace. For so long Davis had done his utmost to garner her attention however he could or somehow arrange it so they were alone together, a result of the not so subtle crush he had held for her, but in recent years he had mellowed in that regard towards her. They might even have something approaching a normal relationship between friends.

That being said, he hadn't quite reached what Kari might consider maturity. There was still some lingering hint of that restless energy he had possessed as a kid, as even now he was moving ever so slightly whilst his eyes roved around the inside of the apartment despite him having been here countless times before.

But then his eyes would turn towards her and look her body up and down, or they would lock with her own, and in those moments he'd fall still if only briefly before moving on to something else. So, obviously he hadn't completely gotten over his crush for her but Kari knew he wasn't going to do something now they were alone together. He was mature enough in that regard, at least.

She collected their plates when he was done and dumped them into the sink for later, returning to the settees where Davis was rummaging around inside his rucksack for something. It was a tan brown thing, a colour that made her think of the military for some reason, with several loops and pockets that all looked to be in use. There was even a smaller bag attached to the front, a first aid kit if Kari had to guess judging by the subdued red cross on it, plus two metal bottles tucked away in some mesh side pockets.

Inside she saw a number of items that were the same brownish colour of the bag, the exceptions being a number of silvery bricks that Davis pulled out to place on the nearby coffee table and some tins he had filled with cardboard and melted wax. Kari sat next to him and picked up one of the bricks to examine it, seeing it was some kind of long life ration pack that contained enough food to sustain a person for three days, four if they were lucky, and guessed the tins were some kind of DIY camping stove.

'Knew they were in here somewhere,' Davis said as he finally found whatever it was he was after, pulling out a deck of cards from the depths of his bag. 'Got to pass the time without power somehow, right?'

'You came prepared,' Kari said

'I guess I spent a little too much time around Joe,' Davis said, rubbing the back of his head. 'He always went on about how hard you guys had it during your first time in the Digital World. No tools or supplies, nothing. It's amazing you all survived for as long as you did.'

'Yeah,' Kari said.

Truthfully, though, she had managed to avoid the various hardships Tai and the others had suffered through during their first few weeks and months in the Digital World, and listening to him talk about it painted a very bleak picture that no child should ever have to go through. It was why when they were called upon again, she and TK always insisted on taking even the most basic of equipment with them in case they were stranded there again.

Looking at the bag Davis had, he had taken the older generation's words to heart, packing all the necessities a person might need if they suddenly found themselves trapped in a hostile wilderness. Or, found themselves homeless after an earthquake condemned their home.

She took hold of the bag to give it a more proper once over and saw it had everything from wet weather gear to fire starting materials, thermal blankets and a hammock, even a water purifier, and said, 'This must have cost you a small fortune. How did you afford it all?'

'Consulting fees,' Davis said. 'The SDF pays top dollar for me and Vee to come play with them on occasion at their base in Nerima.'

'You're still doing that?' Kari said.

The military, through a representative from the National Data Processing Bureau, had come to the DigiDestined in the hopes of having them help train the Self Defence Force's various arms in how to combat rogue Digimon after their previous abysmal outings, offering to generously compensate them for their efforts. But despite the promise of money, only Davis, Izzy and Joe were the ones to take them up on that offer, and even then Izzy and Joe preferred to help them understand Digimon biology, their strengths and weakness, and that was pushing it.

They had been chosen to help maintain peace and balance within the Digital World, including all the various attacks by rogue or displaced Digimon. Only Davis seemed to put any faith in the government to help shoulder some of the burden. Probably for situations like this, actually. Kari had no way of summoning Gatomon should the need arise, meaning her ability to counter an attack was limited, to say the least. But even so, it still didn't quite sit right with her and whether or not she meant it to, her disdain came across in her tone.

'Hey, I'm not willing to pass up fifty-thousand yen every time they have more troops in need of training,' Davis said, raising his hands almost apologetically. 'That ramen cart isn't going to pay for itself.'

'I guess not,' Kari said, offering up a sheepish duck of the head by way of an apology for her tone.

Davis nodded back.

'You should come give it a shot some time,' he said. 'I mean, they're always happy for me and Vee to keep coming back but they could do with going up against an Ultimate or a Mega on occasion. Best we can do is Champion without Ken.'

'I'll think about it,' Kari said, but even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice. Rogue Digimon should remain the sole domain of the DigiDestined. It was what they had been chosen for, after all.

Davis offered up another nod as he said, 'Okay,' before tossing his deck of cards up and down a few times, adding, 'So, what do you feel like playing?'

'I'm open to suggestions,' Kari said, which Davis then went on to provide, listing several different games intended for two players with a brief explanation of their rules before a curt knock at the door interrupted him.

He looked to her and said, 'You expecting anyone else?'

'No,' she said, shaking her head. 'Maybe it's Mrs Iwatani. She lives a few doors down and my mom and her get on pretty well. Maybe she's coming to check up on me.'

She motioned for Davis to stay where he was and got up, though instead of finding her neighbour she found Izzy standing on the other side of the door. Unlike Davis he was more properly dressed and seemed awake, there being no bags beneath his eyes, and slung over his shoulder was his ever ubiquitous laptop rather than a survival pack.

'Hello, Kari,' he said. 'Good to see you're okay.'

'And you,' she said. 'Are you just stopping by or do you want to come in?'

'If it's okay,' Izzy said. 'I actually have something I'd like to run by you. It's something of a new theory I'm working on.'

'Sure,' Kari said. 'Make yourself at home.'

She led him back to the living area where Izzy sat himself down on one of the settees, pulling out his laptop and powering it up with practised ease. Before long the desktop was onscreen, the wallpaper a selfie of himself and Mimi, and only then did he seem to register Davis was sat across from him, slumped down with the cards still in his hands.

'Hey,' he said. 'You homeless too?'

'What?' Izzy said. 'No, my building's fine. Why, what happened to yours?'

'Civil engineers condemned it,' Davis said. 'Kari's been kind enough to take pity on me until I can go home again.'

'I see,' Izzy said. 'I'm sorry to hear that.'

Davis waved him off and said, 'So what brings you here?'

'Well, first I wanted to make sure you both were okay,' Izzy said as he produced his phone. 'But seeing as how the phones are down or jammed, calling was out. Same for the D-Terminals.'

'And the second thing?' Davis said.

'He has some theory he wants to run by us,' Kari said as she sat back down next to Davis, though at her words he let out a despondent groan. Izzy's theories tended to be a little too wordy for him, or involve subjects that he had little to no understanding of.

If Izzy was annoyed by the groan he didn't show it, navigating through his various folders and files until he brought up the one he wanted, a series of graphs and charts that seemed to indicate an increase of something over time, rotating his laptop around to show the pair.

'Over the past few years I've done my best to get in contact with the various other DigiDestined across the globe,' he said. 'To better organise ourselves in case the next would-be tyrant rises up and proves to be too much for the twelve of us to defeat. By my count there's at least forty-thousand DigiDestined I'm in some form of communication with.'

'How do you manage that many?' Kari said.

'Facebook helps,' Izzy said. 'Though in a lot of cases I'm just communicating with the leaders of each team rather than every member individually, otherwise I wouldn't get anything done. As you might expect, that number is always increasing as new DigiDestined are chosen, or they join the network, but on occasion we do lose people.

'Most of the time it's from them going off to do their own thing or the group itself fragments for whatever reason, but there are, occasionally, deaths amongst them.'

'There's a cheery thought,' Davis muttered.

'We aren't invincible,' Izzy said. 'Or immortal. We can die, just like everyone else. In fact, we seem to die more regularly than non-DigiDestined people.'

'It's a dangerous line of business we're in,' Davis said with a shrug. 'Someone's bound to get hurt pretty badly sooner or later.'

'Normally I would agree with you,' Izzy said. 'But most of the deaths being recorded are from non-combat related incidents, not a result of battle.'

He pointed to one of the graphs, a pie chart, that had all of the deaths DigiDestined across world listed on it. How he came into this information he didn't say, but it was easy to see that the vast bulk of the deaths were from causes that didn't relate to fighting giant rampaging monsters. Of course, it was rare for such battles to occur which explained why they were so infrequent, with most of the deaths being relatively mundane in nature like accidents at work or being hut by a car, plus the occasional mugging or home invasion gone wrong though those happened almost as rarely as dying in battle.

Still, it disheartened Kari to know that despite all the adversity they had lived through she and the others could just as easily find their lives ended by random chance in a supposedly safe environment like where they worked, or from just crossing the street. Even so, she failed to see what it was that might have caught Izzy's eyes, saying as much.

'My theory isn't that we're dying,' he said. 'It's that we're dying at a rate above the global average.'

This time he pointed to another chart listing mortality rates across a variety of ages for two groups, DigiDestined and non-DigiDestined presumably, and at a glance it was easy to see that one was higher than the other. Only slightly though, by barely a few percent, which could be a result of any number of things.

'It's not all that much higher,' Kari said.

'No,' Izzy said. 'Really, it's what we might call statistically insignificant and a side effect of how small the sample size is. If I managed to get data for more DigiDestined it might fall more in line with the rest of the world. Maybe even go down.'

But judging by the way his brow furrowed he didn't seem to think this, and when prompted he said, 'If it were for any other group, I might have written it off as just some random quirk. But this is about us. We're not normal people, are we?'

He trailed off for a moment then added, 'It's just a gut feeling. Plenty of these deaths can be explained away easily enough. People entering the workforce or living in areas known for certain issues, to say nothing of hazards endemic to their native countries. I mean, look at us. We've just had an earthquake. How may people will have died from that?

'What's more, in almost every case their partners were nowhere nearby. Some were left at home, or in the Digital World, or were lingering somewhere in the vicinity but were, nevertheless, away from their partners when they died.'

'Is that really so much of an issue?' Davis said. 'We're away from our partners all the time. Nothing bad has happened to us so far.'

'I'll admit, that one's more of an oddity than anything else,' Izzy said. 'For a short while I wondered if excessive time spent apart had the potential to cause serious health issues but, as you said, we're away from our partners all the time and we're no worse off. That or it only affects a small number of us.'

He leaned back and regarded his laptop and the graphs it was displaying, thinking, as Davis said, 'So what explanation do you have for all this?'

'I don't have any, as yet,' Izzy said. 'It's only been a few days since I started working on this and I wanted to run it by someone, to make sure I'm not being overly paranoid.'

To that, Kari could only shrug. On the one hand, she saw why Izzy might have thought something was amiss from the data he had gotten his hands on but on the other, he was basing this on a small sample size. Forty-thousand DigiDestined sounded like a lot but who was to say that was all of them? There were close seven billion people on the planet after all, spread across almost two-hundred countries, so in all likelihood that number might be higher. A lot higher. How might their inclusion skew the data?

Besides, most of the deaths were from natural causes or accidents rather than a result of deliberate actions. If that had been the case Kari would have more readily believed Izzy considering all the anti-Digimon groups out there, but as it stood she found herself leaning towards all this simply being coincidence that had yet to be logically explained. And looking to Davis he seemed to have reached the same conclusion, a decidedly unconcern expression on his face though that could have also been a result of him being tired.

Chances were better than good he had been gaming into the small hours of the morning with his friends from soccer, maybe right up until the earthquake struck, meaning he was probably operating on a scant amount of sleep right now.

Izzy looked at them both and saw he had no agreement from either, saying, 'It's still just a theory,' as he began closing his laptop down, sounding almost dejected at having failed to convince the two.

'You have only just come up with it,' Kari said by way of trying to appease him before standing. 'I'm going to get a drink. Do either of you want anything?'

'No, thank you,' Izzy said. 'I only came over to check on you.'

'Coffee, if you have it,' Davis said. 'Or anything to wake me up.'

'I think we have something,' Kari said.

She moved into the kitchen as Izzy returned his laptop to its slot in his rucksack. As he did, an electronic trilling suddenly came from Davis as he lounged back on the settee and all three of them turned to stare at the source, his phone, shocked he had managed to get a signal despite everything.

He eventually pulled it out and answered without looking at who was calling, saying, 'Yeah?'

'Of all the people to get a signal,' Izzy muttered under his breath as he stood.

Kari let out a small giggle at that as she resumed her journey to the kitchen, pulling out two glasses for herself and Davis.

'What?' he said, holding a finger up to his free ear as he strained to make something out over what was presumably a bad connection. 'Hang on, let me head outside. The signal might be better there.'

He mimed heading to the apartment's balcony with Kari waving him on, only for her attention to be drawn to the door a third time that day by yet more knocking. She started to move towards it but Izzy, already headed that way, indicated he would answer it for her.

'It's probably Mrs Iwatani,' Kari said. 'My neighbour.'

Izzy nodded his head and reached out for the door, but as he did Davis suddenly span about in alarm and looked to him, phone slipping from his fingers as his face went white with shock. Almost immediately Kari knew something was decidedly wrong because it took a lot to shake Davis up like that, a lump forming in her stomach, but did nothing more as her mind began racing in an attempt to imagine just what was going on even as Davis started running back into the apartment

'Izzy, wait!' he shouted, one hand reaching out towards the older DigiDestined.

To his credit Izzy did stop in his tracks, hearing the same alarm Kari had seen, but his hand was already resting on the door handle and going through the motions of opening it. There was a faint click as the latch disengaged and the door sagged open by a scant inch.

Then the world went crazy.