#repeat ichijoujis

[koushirouizumi]

Meanwhile with DigiAdvs 02's Daisuke+Co. [and some O.C.s]

Hikaru, bit earlier that day: !! I just remembered!! Chosen: ?!! Hikaru, ponderingly: Shane mentioned Shane had a younger brother. Hikaru: "Patrick", I think the name was. Taichi + Daisuke: (This is New...) Taichi: (Shane's from the U.S. {right??} so...) Hikaru: But Shane only got to mention him a few times in our e-mail exchanges. It seemed like Shane really cared about Patrick though. They didn't always "hang out" closely, but they did bond when able. Daisuke: (...So Shane is a kind guy after all.) Daisuke: (But Shane was kind before that, too...) Ken: ... (*definitely not thinking of Own family.*) Koushiro: I can look up "Patrick" in combination with "Shane" and see what I can find, but... (both are pretty common names...) Koushiro, to Hikaru: Did Shane ever reveal Shane's surname? Hikaru: It took Shane a *while* to, since we met on-line, but once we finally got more acquainted... Hikaru: (*gives surname*) Chosen: !!! Koushiro: (We should have expected this, actually.) Takeru, Looking down at Patamon: (...That kind of surname...) Miyako: Oh, Takeru-- Takeru: ?? Miyako: (I need to Speak with you after this) Takeru: ...! (What's--) Miyako: (We Need To Talk---) TAKERU: (What Did I Do---)

[beginningobserver]

[RE:CONNECT - blog v.] Link 5- Who's that pink digimon?

[AO3 version]

Rui and Ayame kept on a bare minimum contact via email. As much as she and Hiroomi wanted to meet Rui again, they agreed with Daisuke about not forcing Rui to do it against his own will. They wanted Rui to feel comfortable with that idea, since he was still gathering courage to talk with them in person. He knew they all are old and possibly do not look like the people in that old photo.

First, he learned Hiroomi went on a drastic aesthetic change -- the boy dyed part of his hair blonde and has an earring now. And Second, Ayame is still wearing twin pigtails, but… lower this time. And it seems her hair is not-too-short-but-not-too-long as well.

But what made Rui surprised was seeing a pink rabbit-like digimon in one of Ayame’s photos.

“Daisuke-kun…”

So, his usual decision was to resort to Daisuke’s digi-expertise.

“Do you know what type of digimon this is?”

And he showed the photo of Ayame and the digimon together, from the saved pictures in his phone’s gallery.

“Hmmm…” Daisuke scratched his head, “Ya know, I look like I’d be a digi-expert but I’m not good at identifying digimon… Maybe if we ask Koushiro-san or Ken…”

“Does Ichijouji-kun know more about the digimon…?”

“Yeah, he was like, some nerd type” V-mon nodded sagely, “Didn’t we tell you he used to be a tyrant who thought the Digital World was a game and the digimon its NPCs? Much of that knowledge he got from… that.”

“Oh…”

“He might be free at this hour,” Daisuke looked at his own phone, “Ken usually passes by here…”

The restaurant’s door opened, and Rui turned his head to look at the person getting in and just standing next to them.

“Huh?”

“... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight now,” and Daisuke looked at the tall man and the bug digimon on the man’s shoulder.

“Incredible…” Rui blinked, impressed.

“What are you talking about…?” Wormmon tilted his head.

“Good timing, mr. detective-in-training,” Daisuke clasps his hands together, “Always at the same hour on Tuesdays.”

“You pass by quite a lot here…” V-mon commented.

“...” Ken was still unfazed, “the office is nearby, besides if none of us keep a look on Daisuke every Tuesday he might feel lonely.”

“Hey hey, do ya think I’m like, five?!” Daisuke pouted.

Rui did not understand what was happening anymore.

“And Daisuke likes to hear constructive critique on his dishes,” Wormmon added.

“It looks more like you guys only come here to eat for free,” V-mon whispered to himself.

“You need my help, I presume” Ken said with a sassy tone, “What are you up to this time?”

“It’s not me, sorry to disappoint ya” Daisuke replied, then gestured to Rui, “Rui needs your digimon knowledge right now.”

“Oh…”

“Is that okay to ask about this, though?” Rui frowned, “I--”

“He needs to know about a digimon in one of his childhood friend’s photos” V-mon said bluntly, making Rui’s heart skip a beat.

“I see…” Ken nodded, then looked at Rui, “Can I see it, please?”

“Y-yeah,” and he showed the photo on his phone to Ken, “It’s this pink digimon here, if that’s a digimon though… It could be a plush doll too, I think…”

“It’s definitely not a plush” Ken answered calmly, “The Chosen Children Network shares information not only about wild digimon on the loose, but also about their own partners in case they need help.”

“Oh… So you guys…”

“We had seen that digimon before, right Ken-chan?” Wormmon commented, “Two years ago, when the Eosmon incident happened.”

“Eosmon incident…” Rui repeated those words vaguely, “Two years ago…”

“Yeah, a digimon was stealin’ Chosen Children’s consciousnesses” Daisuke recapped, “Once everything was solved by Taichi-san and the others, I asked if everyone else was fine via the Network.”

“A digimon…” Rui kept vaguing some words without realizing, “stealing consciousnesses of those people…”

“Have you checked the responses to your post?” Ken asked Daisuke now.

“Uhh… I did but there were like 20,240,229 replies to that thread!”

“That’s impossible because--”

“I don’t remember the exact number, dude! And I couldn’t sit and read them all!!”

“... A digimon was the cause of the mass comatose incidents throughout the world two years ago?”

Daisuke and Ken's argument was interrupted by Rui’s question. They glanced at the boy again, but how would they explain about that? Sure, Rui had been possibly living under denial that the digimon were spreading and possibly had became some sort of ‘digimon hater’ for a while, but would he have a good reaction if they tell him a former Chosen Child named Menoa Bellucci had modified her digimon’s partner data and turned it into Eosmon?

They reached the conclusion they couldn’t give those details yet .

“Yeah, but we solved that and everyone is fine now” both boys and their digimon said quickly, to not let him feel that was also his fault.

“Anyway,” Ken cleared his throat, “I did skimmed into that thread once, there were around 19,900 replies ignoring the same messages send by the same user in response to the others in the comments, and some of them had a photo of them and their digimon in order to make sure everything went well for them.”

“And…?” V-mon said, watching Ken just scrolling thru his own phone now, while he was talking:

“And if you mark to filter the results by the ones sent a picture in the replies, we get a better view of the results so you have to search for the girl in the picture, and then we will find her post sent two weeks after the Eosmon incident--”

“... Her name is Nakajima Ayame,” Rui said, deadpanned.

“Oh that’s right!” Daisuke snapped his fingers, and then took his phone, and did his own research on that post, “Ah I found her! She has a Cutemon partner!”

“-- Eh?” Ken blinked, totally beaten by Daisuke and Rui just finding the answer before him.

“Cutemon is a digimon with healing powers!” V-mon replied with a grin, “Didn’t she ask you if you needed help?”

“Yeah, she--”

“If you could do that then why did you ask for Ken-chan’s help?!” Wormmon hissed, calling their attention.

“Oh… True,” V-mon blinked, “But Ken was… Taking too long to--”

“But he was TRYING!!”

“Sorry sorry” Daisuke chuckled nervously, “But we don’t know anything other than the digimon’s name and that it can heal others.”

“Y-your knowledge is still needed, Ichijouji-kun!” Rui babbled quickly.

“...........................” Ken’s silence was terrifying.

Rui whispered to Daisuke and V-mon, “I think we made him angry--”

“Sigh,” Ken sighed, “I had nothing to do at the office at the moment,” and shrugged, “Cutemon’s ears are not exactly bunny ears but sensory organs which can sense the approach of someone like a digimon or human immediately.”

“So like, ears?” V-mon blinked.

“Those are not exactly like ears though…” Daisuke replied.

“Also Cutemon is a fairy type digimon,” Ken continued, “and a Vaccine type too.”

“Fairy type? Vaccine type?” Rui felt like Ken was speaking another language, “So it’s not a rabbit…?”

“Definitely not,” Ken shook his head, then he put his phone in the pocket again.

“Oh… Interesting…”

“But why do you want to know that?” Wormmon asked, curious.

“... Nakajima-san is… one of my childhood friends.”

“What?!” Ken and Wormmon exclaimed.

“It’s a long story” Daisuke tried to explain, “Seems like Rui’s old friends are trying to contact him since the Eggcounter we all had with Ukkomon.”

“Did you just--”

 “If I were still the same person I was before solving my issue with Ukkomon… I’d have been concerned about her getting hurt…” Rui commented with a sigh, then looked at V-mon and to Wormmon, “But you guys proved me that… They would be okay if something bad happened before.”

“Hmm… Cutemon is not a brawler type,” Ken mused, “It’s a healer, so most of its abilities are only for healing rather than for fighting tough digimon.”

“Still… If she gets hurt, her digimon can treat her wounds, right?”

“Yes, I guess” Daisuke frowned.

“But more importantly,” Ken looked at Rui again, “Why didn’t you ask Nakajima instead?”

“... I don’t want to bug her,” he said, and turned his sight away from Ken.

“Hmm…” the other three, but Daisuke felt a bit of concern right now.

Daisuke clasped his hands again, “Well, Rui is taking baby steps. He’s feeling awkward right now because… He thinks Ukkomon also did the thing with those two.”

“The thing ?” Ken and Wormmon raised an eyebrow and the other blinked (respectively)

“The mind-control technique he had,” Rui explained, “I don’t know if it was the tentacle-thing or…”

“Hmm…”

 “... Do you know anything about Ukkomon, Ichijouji-kun?” Rui asked after a brief awkward silence between him and the others.

"Not that I recall, sorry."

“...” Rui frowned. He had the feeling that he would just have to wait for Ukkomon to hatch in order to ask the right questions.

“Are you on a break from work?” Wormmon asked him, out of curiosity.

“I took a day off,” he explained, “I was… spacing out again so my cousin-- I mean, my boss thought I should just get time to…”

“... Get your mind in order, right?” Ken completed it, making Wormmon, Daisuke and V-mon look at him.

“Yeah, that.”

“Huh, whaddya mean--”

“I had to do that before,” Ken looked at Daisuke, “When we were ‘rebuilding’ the Digital World and Arukenimon appeared. I couldn’t join your group because I felt nervous and ashamed of my actions.”

“Oh, that tracks now!” V-mon nodded.

“What Rui is feeling here is something similar: He knows Ukkomon and he might have caused trouble to Nakajima and Koyama before, so he’s feeling nervous about messing things up again. And this is consuming his mind enough to send him there .”

“There?” Daisuke and V-mon asked in unison.

“The Dark Ocean, I say” Ken answered.

“I don’t feel like I’m getting… teleported to that place though…” Rui sighed, “Just that… I don’t want to make things worse for everyone again.”

“Everyone messes things up, Rui” Daisuke left the kitchen side and sat on the empty seat next to the boy, and put his hand on Rui’s shoulder, “Like, I’ve heard my ol’ man boss scold me for overcooking something, or breaking something. Or V-mon just breaking something.”

“H-hey!”

"Pretty sure Ken's boss called him out for screwing up, right?"

“Yeah, it happens.”

“...” Rui looked at Ken and then back to Daisuke, he smiled and nodded in agreement.

“But you shouldn’t do anything reckless, again” then Daisuke’s tone got serious and it really sounded like he was getting lectured by an adult (well… they all are adults there)

“Oh… You mean…” he gulped, “R-right… I’ll not be climbing towers anymore.”

“I didn’t mean that, but… Yeah, don’t put your life in danger like that too. Literally.”

“I feel like we had a talk like that before…” V-mon tilted his head.

“If we did, it means we’re just reminding Rui and making sure he got our support here!”

“...”

“And no, bud. You’re not givin’ us any trouble.”

“To be fair, all of this team is full of issues” Ken made a snarky remark, looking at Daisuke, “But that’s why we need each other.”

“Are you two flir--”

“NOPE!” Daisuke hissed, “Don't you dare say what Miyako said before! Besides, Ken and Miyako are an item!” he blushed, embarrassed. 

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Wormmon said with a monotone voice, quite upset with something, “Right, Ken-chan?”

“... Ah. Right… I have to go now.”

“But you barely eat--” V-mon said, but Ken and Wormmon (on Ken’s back) just left quickly like if he had left the stove on.

“What’s wrong with them?” Rui asked, confused.

“Who knows,” Daisuke shrugged, “Ken’s like that. Everybody thinks he's a smart, cool guy, but...he's a walking mess and dumbass.”

[detectiveichijouji]

Case 9 - Hikari has a secret admirer!?

[AO3 version!!]

Tailmon is a mature cat with lots of responsibilities, but she also could lose a few brain cells to please Hikari. At least she and Hikari are doing well now!! Since the day she was rescued from Vamdemon’s hands, life has turned into a pleasant adventure for her. Even with the deepest struggles and despair they had faced… Tailmon and Hikari had the help of their friends, and Taichi, to surpass all the sadness and misfortune in the world.

But… Today’s case… It’s a little complicated.

“... Ichijouji-kun… I need your help.”

Ken was looking at Hikari, who suddenly appeared at the end of his classes and in front of the entrance of his school. Wormmon looked at Ken, who glanced from Wormmon to Hikari in confusion.

“Yes? How can we help you?”

Oddly, Tailmon was not in her usual digimon level form -- she was devolved into Plotmon. This brought some suspicion to both Ken and Wormmon. Seriously, what’s going on there?

“I can’t talk here…” she used her free hand to grab Ken’s arm gently and drag him on a walk, “Can we go to your home, please?”

Ken blinked. What does THIS mean!? His curiosity just hit him badly that he decided to accept the idea. And while they were on the way to his apartment, he noticed Hikari looking behind, and around… Continuously. So… Maybe she has been stalked? -- Ken mused.

Once they arrived at the Ichijouji’s residence, he asked if she wanted something to drink, because he definitely noticed her being quite wary. Hikari accepted a warm tea cup, and then he prepared it for both of them.

“So… What’s wrong?” Ken finally had the moment to ask for the details.

“Someone… is stalking us,” Hikari said, a bit timidly and awkwardly.

“Ah I see” he sipped his tea, then made his next question “Do you know who is?”

“No. All I know is… They left a letter on our apartment’s doorstep”

“Hmm…” Wormmon mused, while Ken did it in silence, “Why do you need our help, Hikari-san?”

“I thought about going to the place they asked us to go and…”

“... And?” Ken and Wormmon repeated.

“... Tell them that I already have a boyfriend...”

“I see…” they said together.

“... And I’d like to ask if you could pretend to be my boyfriend in front of them.”

Ken and Wormmon spat their tea on each other’s faces.

“W-what!?” Ken babbled, “I don’t think this would work… I mean, I think you should’ve asked Takeru-kun or Daisuke for that--”

“Takeru-kun and Daisuke-kun wouldn’t look like the perfect match for this plan… Takeru-kun might be nice but he’s a little scary and I don’t want to have him threatening whoever is this secret admirer. And Daisuke-kun… W-well, he’s Daisuke-kun…!”

“He would end up messing this up” Plotmon explained, “Besides, he doesn’t seem the kind to intimidate someone.”

“Daisuke’s going to murder me…” Ken muttered.

“True, Ken-chan is boyfriend material” Wormmon nodded sagely.

“W-Wormmon!!” Ken blushed. Then, he asked: “Did you tell anyone else about this? Taichi-san? Miyako-san? Iori-kun?”

She and Plotmon shook their heads gently, but frowning. Hikari added: “No, because we didn’t know what to do… Until I had this idea from a TV show I was watching recently.”

“Then, how do you plan to make it work?” Ken and Wormmon said in unison. 

“We do this quickly and then we get away with this, without anyone knowing about this plan, ok?” Hikari replied with a timid smile.

Ken did not ask for this, and he hasn't cogitated about Iori as a fake boyfriend because Iori’s younger than Hikari. But deep down Ken knew this wouldn’t work well, but Hikari is so good at manipulating people that when he realized…

“Please, I… I trust you to discover who they are and intercept them”

“F-fine… But… I’d like to say one detail: I like someone else, and I hope we can keep this person away from this…”

“Oh okay! Let’s don’t do anything like that in public, only when we meet that secret admirer.”

… it was too late to go back.

Hikari met Daisuke and Takeru at class the next day, as usual. But Tailmon kept in Plotmon form, which wasn’t usual at all. Daisuke and Chibimon were the first ones to suspect of something wrong:

“Maybe Tailmon got sick!” It was Daisuke’s theory.

“Have you ever seen a digimon sick before?” Takeru asked, innocently.

“I’ve seen one sick! Chibimon got a cold once! He sneezed like a hedgehog!”

“H-hey!!” Chibimon protested.

“But it was a funny sneeze sound that I wish I had recorded for myself…”

“Maybe she’s not sick,” Patamon mused, “Digimon in this world tend to run their energies so fast to maintain higher forms…”

“Ah… That’s true,” Daisuke blinked. Chibimon agreed with a nod.

“Maybe we should ask Plotmon herself?” Takeru suggested, with a warm smile on his face.

“Tailmon devolved because she’s tired” Hikari interrupted them, “Because she got a little sick yesterday. So both are right.”

“Yes, I don’t recommend staying close, it might be contagious,” Plotmon added.

“C-contagious!?” Daisuke and Chibimon gasped.

“It’s just a cold, nothing to worry about,” Hikari giggled.

“No, it is” Plotmon disagreed, with a serious tone, “It might be too contagious so better you, Takeru and Patamon don’t get any closer. Hikari is fine because she’s infected too.”

“W-W-WHAT!? AND YOU WENT TO SCHOOL WHILE SICK!?” Daisuke panicked.

“Um… I-It’s not that bad…”

“HIKARI-CHAN PLEASE GO HOME, NOW! I’LL TELL THE TEACHERS! You can get my notebook for the lessons you miss, but please GO HOME NOW!”

“Plotmon… Forgot to say this is only with Chosen Children!”

“E-eh!?”

“Exactly!” Plotmon added, “Non-partnered humans and digimon cannot get infected. They’re safe. It only affects Chosen Children and partnered digimon.”

Takeru looked at Patamon for a moment and whispered to him: “Hikari-chan and Plotmon are acting weirdly today… That’s definitely a lie.”

“Yeah, but it’s working on Daisuke and Chibimon…” Patamon pointed at the other duo just… standing away from Hikari and Plotmon.

“... I forgot Daisuke-kun and Chibimon are the kind to believe in everything without hesitation…” Takeru sighed.

After class…

“I can’t believe Hikari-chan is sick and we can’t stay close to her!!” Daisuke sighed.

“... Daisuke-kun,” Takeru looked at him seriously, “Did you do something to Hikari-chan and Tailmon?”

“W-what? No! I didn’t!” Daisuke growled,  “Do ya think it’s my fault now!?”

“No… It felt like she was trying to keep both of us away from her…”

“Did you do something instead?” Chibimon asked, but innocently.

“Nope.” Patamon answered with a shrug.

“But why would she…” Daisuke seemed concerned, he was glancing at the street while he and Takeru were eating some burgers at a fast food store.

“Should we investigate it?” Chibimon asked the boys and Patamon.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Takeru confessed, “It would be better if we wait until they can explain it to us.”

“Besides, stalking is a bad idea,” Patamon said, looking at Takeru, “Right, Takeru?”

“I don’t say stalking Hikari-chan…” Daisuke frowned, “I don’t want her or Tailmon to get hurt if they’re sick…”

“She’s not sick,” Takeru sighed, “More likely she’s hiding something from us.”

“Yeah… Hmm, do ya think she’s mad at us?”

“If we didn’t do anything wrong, that might not be the case,” Chibimon commented.

“Yeah!” Patamon agreed, “It might be for another reason.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t worry,” Takeru gave Daisuke a smile, “Hikari-chan and Tailmon might be fine, if anything bad happens she will call us five to help her.”

“Y-yeah, it’s not like she got a super secret right?” Daisuke chuckled, but then he saw Hikari on the other side of the street, “Ah, she’s there.”

“I guess she’s waiting for someone… Taichi-san, Miyako-san or another friend outside our group.”

“Yea-- HUH!?”

Daisuke gasped, and then he saw Ken with Hikari now.

“T-TAKERU!” he babbled, “S-SOMETHING IS… UH… WEIRD HERE.”

“Ichijouji-kun? Huh, I didn’t know she would meet him today…”

“But I thought Ken liked-- A-another person I’m not allowed to say because that’s private and if I let anyone else know he might hunt me down!”

“But I thought it was Daisuke who liked Hikari” Patamon and Chibimon said together.

“H-hey!! It’s not like I have a crush on her or something!!”

Well, you’re definitely panicked here about this… -- Takeru thought, shrugging. It’s not a secret that Daisuke has a crush on Hikari, and everyone in that circle is pretty much aware of that, including Hikari herself. But Daisuke… He thinks he’s so good at hiding it to not notice the truth, that he’s too transparent when it comes to his crush on Hikari.

“Takeru.”

Oh no, will he…

“Let’s follow them!”

“Daisuke-kun I don’t think it’s a good idea--”

“Like goddamnit, I just wish they could have told us! We would understand! We wouldn’t do anything to separate them from each other! And it’s not like the-one-who-Ken-has-a-crush-and-I-can’t-tell-ya will be mad either…”

“Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions too fast?” Patamon blinked, his face was a legit 😐 right now.

“Miyako’s gonna be disappointed tho” Chibimon frowned, “Hikari got Ken before her.”

“B-before we start panicking about this…” Takeru tried to calm everyone down, “Maybe we should ask them directly. But not now. We have to respect their privacy.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound right,” Patamon said, and then ate a french fry, “Here, eat a crunchy french fry!!” He offered it to Chibimon.

“I think I just saw Daisuke-san, Chibimon, Takeru-san and Patamon at the burger shop,” Wormmon commented with the other three.

“As long as they didn’t see us, it will be okay,” Plotmon said calmly.

“But why are we meeting in an alley?” Ken frowned, “There’s something off…”

“It’s what’s said in the letter” Hikari said, “I knew it would be too risky so…”

“You could’ve asked Miyako-san’s help instead… She’s your jogress partner after all…”

“Yeah, but…”

“But?” Ken raised an eyebrow.

“... The reason Tailmon devolved was…”

“Hohoho, there you are my beloved Tailmon~”

Ken put himself in front of Hikari and Plotmon, with Wormmon on guard. The boy just screamed: “Who’s there!?”

“Huh??” the digimon, who looked like a Tailmon costume wore by a humanoid monster (a la Etemon) just popped from the shadows, “Who the heck are you? Where’s Tailmon!?”

“... Betsumon?” Wormmon tilted his head.

“So that’s the reason,” Ken looked at Hikari, “You got the letter talking about someone having a crush on Tailmon, then you knew you were being watched by Betsumon so you lied about the fake date plan and couldn’t put the other in danger. Am I right, Hikari-san?”

“What what what??” Betsumon growled, “you brought this punk with ya!? I asked one thing and you--”

“Miyako and Hawkmon also know,” Plotmon said, “But I can’t Jogress-evolve into Silphymon with Aquilamon. So it would be pointless.”

“Why?” Ken and Wormmon asked.

“Because I have THIS with me,” and then Betsumon showed one of those portable Dark Towers.

“Oh, that makes sense now…” Ken replied with an unpleasant voice tone. Oh of course it’s one of those portable Dark Towers. Again. Someday he will find who’s building those and make them never build one ever again.

“But how can we fight!?” Wormmon seemed concerned, and he glanced at the other three, “You should’ve called for Takeru-san or Daisuke-san’s help.”

Hikari then gave her D-Terminal, “Please, use this.”

“Digimental…?” Ken took it and then… “I got it…” he glanced at Wormmon, “Wormmon, ready?”

“Yeah!”

“What?” Betsumon raised an eyebrow, “Will ya pick a fight against me? I’m a perfect level digimon, you can’t--”

“Light Digimental Up!!”

Wormmon Armor-evolved with the Digimental of Light to a mythological beast, with traces of the Mayan’s Quetzalcoatl, the plumed and winged serpent: Coatlmon.

“Oh I guess you wanna fight someone bigger than you!” Betsumon laughed.

Apparently, Betsumon was smaller than Coatlmon. Ken, Hikari and Plotmon were just staring at him coldly, as if that opponent digimon was just a big joke. That wasn’t funny though…

“That’s my chance…!!” Betsumon’s eyes flashed like lights, and he took the advantage of his ‘Cold Gag’ technique to try to snatch Plotmon from Hikari’s hands.

But Ken shielded Hikari and Plotmon, giving time for Coatlmon to attack and then coil around Betsumon, forcing him drop the portable Dark Tower on the floor. Plotmon jumped from Hikari’s arms, caught the tiny tower and handed it to Ken, who tossed it to the ground and broke it with his foot.

“M-MY DARK TOWER!!” Betsumon cried, then used his paws to hit Coatlmon’s head like if he was hitting the boke of a manzai show -- his special technique: the Tsukkomi Punch !!

“Ouch!” Coatlmon devolved to Wormmon and set Betsumon free, falling in Ken’s arms… He was mentally drained and couldn’t keep his Armor form!!

“Hahaha, that was my best shot!” Betsumon laughed menacingly, “Now let me get my prize!”

“Not so fast,” Ken smirked, a legit Digimon Kaiser smirk. When Betsumon realized, Angewomon had fled in his direction.

“W-WHAT!?” Betsumon screamed, but he recognized that smirk, “Y-YOU’RE THAT… THAT GUY!! THE DIGIMON--”

And then, Angewomon knocked him down with a punch.

“-- KAIS--ACK!!” And then he was knocked out.

“It had been a while since I heard someone calling me by that name…” Ken sighed, then he looked at Hikari, “Case solved, now we should just send him back to the Digital World and you and Tailmon will be free from him.”

“Thank you, Ichijouji-kun but… Are you and Wormmon okay?”

Ken nodded his head, “Yeah, it just caught me off guard for a little… So those things are still in use…” he looked at the shattered Dark Tower on the floor.

“Ken open the gate,” Angewomon asked politely, with Betsumon on her shoulder like if she was carrying a sack of potatoes.

“A-ah, right…” Ken took his D-3 and pointed to a random space in the alley, “Digital Gate, open.”

The gate opened and Betsumon was dumped into it as if Angewomon was taking out the trash. And then, Ken closed the gate.

When they were leaving the alley, they saw a very very EMOTIONAL Daisuke with Chibimon on his head, dragging Takeru by his wrist (with Patamon on Takeru’s head) -- Ken gulped: They will have to explain a lot of this to those two now…

“KEN! YOU, YOU--!!”

“Daisuke I--”

“-- YOU SHOULD’VE SAID ME THAT YOU TWO WERE PLANNIN’ SOMETHING FOR MIYAKO’S BIRTHDAY ALREADY!!”

“Eh!?” Ken and Hikari blinked. Then Daisuke gestured to the store they stood in front of -- a store with stuff for parties.

“At first I thought you and Hikari-chan liked each other!” Daisuke babbled, dramatically of course “But Takeru and I found that too strange! And I know you like you-know-who so it would be bad if you were like that cheap prince named Wallace, the dude from America, y’know!”

Ken and Hikari looked at each other. Didn’t Daisuke see them leaving the alley, so maybe they could roll with it, right?

“But! But Hikari-chan is Miyako’s bestie, and you’re so tall and chill so it wouldn’t mind carrying a few boxes for her, right!?”

“Uh… Yeah!” Hikari nodded, “I called Ichijouji-kun to help me with the packages! But turns out we had to catch a digimon and send it back to the Digital World, so we did it without calling the others!”

Takeru had been shaken by Daisuke’s gestures (because Daisuke didn’t let go of his wrist) and he was completely exhausted from being dragged like that. Daisuke sighed relieved:

“Ok, I’m glad you two are fine… But what was that thing about not gettin’ close to Chosen Children and partnered digimon to not infect them with a flu?”

“H-huh?” Ken looked at her.

“Oh…!!” Hikari was sweating now, but kept calm, “I know you guys would spill the beans if I told you about Miyako’s birthday surprise party, so… I asked for Ichijouji-kun’s help instead.”

“I see… Well then, next time call Takeru and me! We can handle it! We’re strong too!!”

“Right! I will call you and Takeru-kun if we need help then.”

“Call me for wh--” then Daisuke just turned back, still dragging Takeru by his wrist “He-hey! Daisuke-kun--”

“... Should we tell them later?” Ken and Wormmon asked the other two.

“Yes, we should tell them later,” they replied.

“Now that he mentioned it… Isn’t Miyako’s birthday in May?” and then the boy raised an eyebrow, “We’re in August…”

“Considering it was Daisuke who made that assumption, better not remember him yet” Tailmon shrugged, Hikari giggled.

Suddenly, Hikari’s phone rang and she answered the call, it was Miyako: “Hikari-chan! I’m sorry I couldn’t help you with that sneaky creep digimon! But… Are you okay? Did it work?”

“Oh, it worked! You were right, Ichijouji-kun and I beat that Betsumon and… I think we will have to explain it to Takeru-kun and Daisuke-kun later…”

“Oh… Well, I’ll message them later. Are you with Ken-kun now?”

“Yes, he’s here! Do you want to talk to him?” and then she gave the phone to Ken, and he was… a little confused and tense?

“H-hello…?”

“Hello, it’s Miyako!” Miyako said with a happy voice tone, “A-ah, I’m sorry for that! I dumped this on you because of a school club activity… But it was our only option, the other two wouldn’t work for that job!!”

“W-wait, it was your idea??” Ken blinked.

“Hehe… Sorry~”

Of course it was actually Miyako’s plan. Hikari isn’t the kind to make risky plans… Or ask someone to pretend to be a boyfriend to shoo some stalker out. However, Miyako… Yeah, this explains why Hikari was so tense and nervous. But she was also watched by Betsumon, so…

“... N-next time please explain to me before sending Hikari-san. We almost made Daisuke freak out thinking we were secretly dating.”

“Of course he would put a nail in my perfect plan!” she growled, “But I will explain everything to everyone! Sorry and Thank you~♡”

She hung up. Ken silently gave the phone to Hikari again. Oh that day was… Too stressful, he might go home and crash in bed. He looked at Hikari, his brain kinda fried by whatever happened that day:

“Why did Miyako-san make a plan like this if Tailmon was the target?”

“Uh… We thought Betsumon was a partnered digimon… So we thought it was someone else and Betsumon.”

“That… That sounds right,” he remembered how both Daisuke and V-mon are though…

“We were hiding one more detail though” Tailmon began, explaining, “Someone tried to attack Hikari when she found the letter, and then I protected her. I ran after the suspect, but then I got hit by something and devolved into Plotmon.”

“You mean… Betsumon attacked you?” Wormmon commented.

“Yeah, and then… When I went to look for Tailmon…” Hikari continued from there, “Betsumon found me and asked to bring Tailmon. Hours later, she came home as Plotmon and told me what happened.”

“Hmm…” Ken mused, “That Betsumon was looking after something then…”

“But let’s not worry about it now” Hikari said quickly and awkwardly, “It might be just some love sick Betsumon, right?”

“No, it doesn’t seem to be the case…” Ken thought, “But I’ll keep an eye on our surroundings…”

If it was on purpose or just a digimon in love with Tailmon they don’t know. Whatever comes next is uncertain, so better not waste time thinking too hard about it…

[seventeenlovesthree]

Yeah so your dynamic shipping game? I know I say Takeru and Hikari a lot because I always want to know others perception of them.

Another one I am very curious about is Koushirou and Mimi. Because Tri just worked for them.

But if you mean non common ships I have been curious about Yamato and Mimi. I get the whole they look good together vibe especially in illustrations, but personality wise they don’t really mesh up well in my opinion. Maybe you’ll find something good out of it?

Anyways thank you for reading this. Even if you do one review I would appreciate it. Thank you!

Hello there! Thank you for sending me this, I still have all the other rarepairs in my queue and want to work on them, since I always enjoy to have some thought experiments here and there.

Since my stance on Takari hasn't really changed ever since writing my first analysis post, I hope it's okay if I'm not gonna repeat this one.

However, the other two (namely Koumi and Mimato) are definitely more interesting to write about, for very different reasons each:

Digimon Shipping Dynamic Game:

Send me two names among the following 12 and I’ll write a short analysis post about them:

Taichi Yagami | Yamato Ishida | Sora Takenouchi | Koushirou Izumi | Mimi Tachikawa | Jyou Kidou | Takeru Takaishi | Hikari Yagami | Daisuke Motomiya | Miyako Inoue | Iori Hida | Ken Ichijouji

Whether canon provides input on them or not:

Since I've already written a huge tumblr breaking analysis on what does and does not work about them, you can bet that canon provides a whole lot of input about them. I will try to keep this section as brief as possible regardless:

You have their initial set-up, which appears to be your typical "opposites/beauty and the nerd" tropes at first glance - and while they do fulfill their stereotypes to at least some degree at various parts of the series, they also frequently defy them. They're the same age and also classmates, making them one of the few characters who have known each other (very superficially) even before the events of Adventure - and they start off rather roughly. While both of them are portrayed as oddballs in their own ways (enjoying questionable food combinations, being very focused on the things they're interested in, etc.), they have very different priority systems. Basically, whenever these two are the focus in an episode (namely the infamous episode 10 of Adventure), a scene (namely their interactions in "Diablomon Strikes Back) or a plot-point (namely their interactions throughout the first four Tri movies), it's usually about them having to come to terms with their different approach systems:

Koushirou is the rational type, who focuses on solving a problem by going through the entire PDCA cycle, trying to figure out each and every puzzle piece and gather all information to come to a conclusion. Mimi's judgement is based more on emotions, feelings and instinct, she likes to skip the first three steps of the PDCA cycle and does what she thinks is best for everyone - and that's where these two tend to clash. While Koushirou absolutely can be a hands-on person who jumps into action when necessary, he has a hard time understanding Mimi's reasoning sometimes, especially when she demands him to take her/other people's feelings into account. They do have very different energy levels in that regard - which, on the other hand, is also what makes their DSB interactions so entertaining to watch, as she is just very happy to be back in Japan, wanting his attention (extroverted dominance), while he's absolutely done trying to save the world once again (introverted exhaustion).

While their fights can turn out to be rather exhausting whenever they're not able to communicate well and also whenever they cannot admit that the other may have had a point (especially in Tri), they do work best once they actually reconcile and combine their strengths; whether it's when he is leaving his laptop behind (once) to tear down a wall to save her, admitting that acting is better than thinking sometimes (episode 10), when she praises his skills and achievements up to the point of them even working on her online shop together (Tri + Kizuna/To Sora), or when he leaves his laptop at home once again after being told to do so by her, just to come to the conclusion that this helped him to actually think about what he wants to do in the future (Stageplay).

There is a reason why they're among the most popular ships in the Digimon fandom world-wide due to their interesting dynamics (see here and here). So much so that there was even an audio drama explicitly functioning as fanservice, making Koushirou write a love letter to someone and having Mimi be rather infuriated by the idea that it was for Hikari instead of herself. While instances like this (and DSB) formed the preferred fandom headcanon of Mimi having a crush on Koushirou, Tri canonized him having developed a crush on her instead - even though said crush was rather treated in a comic relief manner without serving a development trigger in either of their arcs, as the main focus had been, once again, them having very different view-points instead.

Long story short - there is A LOT to work with. Even though I have to say that, in my opinion, Tri did not really work for them. The recycled conflict between them (rational vs. emotional) could have been great if it had been intertwined in their respective arcs (self-isolation vs. selfishness), but was NEVER properly resolved. The crush never led to anything but fanservice (while also reducing Koushirou's character to that in a "they had to dumb him down so he couldn't figure out the plot immediately" way). I actually prefer their portrayal in the stageplay (as well as in Kizuna/To Sora), which is why I chose the screenshot above - but let me elaborate on that...

Whether I think why and how they’d work:

The "opposites attract trope", if done right, can be a very appealing one - and, as mentioned, it explains why these two are as popular as a romantic ship as they are. As mentioned above, I do prefer their portrayal in the stageplay as opposed to Tri; while their personalities were still very much on opposing ends, there was a lot more familiarity and closeness between them, which could have been the natural development after they had started to come to terms with their "differences" after episode 10 of Adventure, throughout 02 and up to this point. Mimi scolding Koushirou for relying on his laptop too much is met with him seeming rather helpless, exhausted by her attitude at first - however, instead of just acting obediently and leaving his laptop at home to please her, he uses that twice: Once by teasing her, pretending to have withdrawal symptoms and scaring her in the process, ACTUALLY joking around intentionally and playfully for once! Secondly, he actually talks about his own dreams, feeling inspired by her and indirectly thanking her for that (the crush does not seem to exist at this point btw). And that is a mutual point for them, as Mimi also confesses to Sora that, while she's currently not crushing on anyone, she also feels inspired by Koushirou to maybe do "something with computers" in the future (which, as we know, will actually happen by the time of Kizuna).

And that is what, as mentioned above, could be their greatest strength as a romantic couple. They're AWARE of their different energy levels and, after all these years, they've started to gain an understanding of the other's needs in terms of emotional and mental affection. At least they SHOULD BE. Instead, Tri implied that Koushirou suddenly started to get interested in fashion JUST for the sake of impressing Mimi - which is not what his character is about at all and misunderstood his entire arc of accepting himself the way he is. Having him bend over backwards to impress the person he fell in love with, hiding behind an app to tell him how to dress, would always result in him never opening up - sure, he's been able to stand his ground against her, but that only resulted in them shouting at each other in Tri, unable to really understand each other. And Tri COULD have used that to make Mimi comment on how it didn't matter what he wore as long as he felt comfortable with it. Because - again, they're both weird in their own ways and wouldn't be themselves if they changed for the sake of someone else. But that conclusion was never reached.

In an ideal world, I feel like they could just have naturally progressed from 02 to the Stageplay to Kizuna/To Sora; with Koushirou becoming more aware and considerate towards Mimi needing attention and affection and Mimi learning that there are times when Koushirou needs to be left to solve his riddles, with words of encouragement in between. The Kizuna promo art of her looking absolutely amazed at whatever he had managed to make out of her online shop while he beams at her with fondness and pride is how I could see them working out just fine. Sure, there would be moments of them clashing again - but they'd be able to deal with that without him turning into an obedient puppy or her turning into an enraged harpy. There can be a sense of protectiveness and gentleness between them, learning from and complementing each other without actively trying to CHANGE the other, enjoying each other's company as well as spending time apart, as long as they have something to gush over together (whether that's online shops, food, their friends - or, like in the reboot, the actual fact that Mimi's grandfather is the manufacturer of Koushirou's tablet. The potential of them actually having business-related rambles is just too good to pass on).

Whether I’d prefer them as platonic or romantic ship:

Alright, enough rambles - throughout all this time spent analyzing their romantic potential, I have actually grown more fond of them as a couple. Despite that, I still prefer them as platonic business friends, since I primarily ship each of them with other characters. Still, I love the idea of them growing more and more close and familiar through the years (which is basically canon at this point anyway), teasing and praising each other, making jokes, gossiping over their friends, etc. (Though I would actually like to see them in an OT3 with Taichi - because in my opinion, both Mimi and Taichi care deeply about Koushirou and he'd be such a wonderful bisexual disaster around them. Plus, I thoroughly despise certain fandom depictions of Michi cheating on Koushirou with each other, because that couldn't be further from their actual personalities.)

ALRIGHT, NEXT.

Digimon Shipping Dynamic Game:

Send me two names among the following 12 and I’ll write a short analysis post about them:

Taichi Yagami | Yamato Ishida | Sora Takenouchi | Koushirou Izumi | Mimi Tachikawa | Jyou Kidou | Takeru Takaishi | Hikari Yagami | Daisuke Motomiya | Miyako Inoue | Iori Hida | Ken Ichijouji

Whether canon provides input on them or not:

Depending on what you want to look at: There isn't much. While you referred to them as "non common ship", I do believe there is quite a fanbase for them out there. However, I'm inclined to agree that it is mainly based on two factors: Both of them being highly attractive characters and the potential they could have due to their personalities (and the tropes they represent).

Throughout Adventure 01 and 02, I actually cannot remember any significant interactions these two had with each other; Yamato starts off having a hard time approaching the others, he's not exactly closed off or aloof, but is mainly focused on taking care of Takeru. Him ACTIVELY bonding with others happens very rarely, so when he's not contemplating things (sometimes together with Jyou), or argues or fights with and alongside Taichi, he doesn't really have any capacities to interact with Mimi - who, in turn, is more likely to play around with Takeru or spend time with Sora or Jyou. At first glance, Yamato is the classic introvert to Mimi being an extrovert, which is not only displayed by their colour palettes being VERY different (warm shades of red and pink vs. cold shades of green and blue), but also by their energy levels. While they're both very outspoken and opinionated - they never talk to each other in either 01 and 02. In the novel, there are even several instances of their energy levels and approaches being that different that they actually clash with each other, actively fighting.

Thus, figuring out their dynamics is rather difficult - there are just minor instances (and characteristics) that COULD make them rather interesting; one of the most famous moments in 01 is the way Yamato tells Taichi off, demanding him to give them - and Mimi in particular - time and space to mourn the loss of the Digimon that have already died, implying that he's sympathizing with her. Yamato has definitely experienced loss in his life already after the divorce of his parents and still struggles with feeling inadequate as a brother to Takeru - while Mimi comes from one of the happiest, most peaceful families in the series. Her purity, her sense of wanting to achieve peace without sacrifices almost appears as a stark contrast to Yamato's "corruption" later on; when he demands Taichi to fight him, trying to solve things in a rather violent way, it's almost a shame that someone like Mimi is not able to stop him there and then (since deep down inside, he doesn't want to fight either). And that's where I assume fandom likes to step in using their personalities to form headcanons:

Mimi being a positive influence, a genuine force of sincerity to (literally) pull Yamato out of his (more negative) tendencies, helping him to be more honest with himself as well - almost in an actual "Beauty and the Beast" kind of way. Neither Tri or Kizuna really elaborated on their dynamics - but the former did like to imply that they are indeed opposing forces, twice; the situation depicted above shows the group coming together after Mimi had another fight with Koushirou. Meiko feels like a burden, since she was the reason Mimi and Koushirou clashed in the first place, as he tried to interrogate her in a moment of emotional vulnerability, while Mimi called him out for being insensitive. Yamato voices his concern towards Meiko, telling her to stop worrying them - and both Taichi and Sora step in, saying that Yamato was just genuinely worried about her, to which Mimi tries to call him a "Tsundere". He just deflects by telling her that she cannot speak proper Japanese and that she's just making things more complicated (because she refuses to take a step towards Koushirou at this point). The other instance is within the stageplay - where Yamato tells Mimi to stay away from his cooking, fearing that her extravagant tastes (bananas and fish) may ruin the dish...

Long story short - they don't appear to be very compatible as friends canonically. So, again, that's where headcanons have to step in.

Whether I think why and how they’d work:

As mentioned above, due to their contrasting set-ups, family backgrounds and way of attraction, there is an appeal that may make them quite popular in singular online spaces. Mimi is a natural people-magnet due to her openness and tendency to become the center of attention very quickly, she easily befriends everyone around her (even if some may find her controversial, as depicted in Tri) and tries to spread a positive spirit. Whereas Yamato, despite being a band leader (that is also very popular), is indeed more closed-off, with a very selective group of friends he is very committed to and protective of (maybe even possessive to some degree, as you can imagine he is not good at dealing with losses). From an outside view, they almost have that "idol-like vibe" that makes them very attractive - so it's no surprise fandom sees them as an intriguing and compelling combination to end up together. Due to them being as opinionated as they are, they may clash a lot - but similarly to Koumi, that COULD be also a strength, as it is important for characters like Yamato to ACTUALLY speak their mind without hiding behind a mask. Plus, Yamato needs someone he can truly be vulnerable around with, because he's a lot softer (and awkward) than his facade would make you believe at first glance. The question is - would he be able to let loose around Mimi like that? It's very hard to tell, because unlike with Koumi, we don't really know if she understands how he rolls. Sure, she can see that he has VERY Tsundere-like tendencies, tough shell, soft and caring on the inside - but up to this point, they're not close (or even comfortable) enough for him to not deny that rather aggressively (especially because Taichi and Sora were actually a lot quicker to pick that up - which is no surprise either, because they're canonically closer to him). So it feels more like they'd be prone to fight for dominance than being able to take a step towards each other (even more strongly than Koumi, because Mimato may take disagreement as a personal attack and can't even seem to bond over their passion for cooking together at this point in time).

Mimi, on the other hand, also needs someone who can keep up with her - people like Jyou and Koushirou, as we've seen, should be used to her habits already, but it is very difficult to tell whether Yamato would have the energy and patience to deal with her, giving her the assurance and attention she needs.

Long story short, the potential is there due to their personalities, but we never learn if and how they'd be able to interact on a closer level.

Whether I’d prefer them as platonic or romantic ship:

Admittedly, they're a relationship I have pretty much no attachment to, simply due to the fact that canon never gave me a reason to believe that they'd think of each other as "close friends", let alone "romantic partners". As they're both Chosen Children, they would surely protect and fight for each other, no question - but everything beyond that never gave me positive vibes. Which is actually a shame, because they're both (potentially) good with Jyou and Takeru, Team Hope exists for a reason after all (and I even ship both Mimi and Yamato with Jyou, yet I couldn't imagine them being an actual OT3). Heck, they're also both (supposedly) very close to Sora, yet they never had a group moment together. Even in the reboot, they were mainly just arguing and never had a positively reaffirming moment together. So I must say, I rather think of them as acquaintances than anything else.

[dragonandtiger]

Dreaming To Reality: Oneiromancy Chapter Thirty - 11

CheerfulHeaven: The answer to that might be easier than you think.

@Koshiro: Did you find something?

CheerfulHeaven: Digital Max is owned by Kigaru Tengoku.

CheerfulHeaven: Sound familiar?

GODHACKER: not really

CheerfulHeaven: He’s Tsuyosa’s dad.

CheerfulHeaven: Tsuyosa Tengoku.

GODHACKER: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Miyako sat up straight at that, jerking up like a flagpole. Kudamon sensed it coming and quickly flew back to avoid being hit in the face by the back of Miyako’s head. Kudamon carefully landed on her partner’s shoulder, blinking, before turning her attention to what Miyako had reacted to.

“Wait, Tsuyosa’s dad?” Kudamon repeated. “You mean that Tsu kid at the Ryuzaki’s? His dad?”

@Koshiro: Wait, wasn’t he the one that helped Ken mass-produce our DT2s?

GODHACKER: SO WHAT HE’S A FUKKIN MOLE???????

GODHACKER: YOU SURE THERE’S NO SPYWARE OR CRAP

@RainbowBuilder: They’ve already been thoroughly searched after the whole Kaiser fiasco.

GODHACKER: THAT’S RIGHT!!!!!

GODHACKER: ITS FUKKIN KEN ICHIJOUJI AGAIN!!!

GODHACKER: ITS HIS FUKKIN BUDDY!!!!!!

* @DigimonKaiser has joined #Digimon

@DigimonKaiser: I just came in to say that anyone can easily hack into these “private” chatrooms and read everything you’re saying without having to join.

[ryuuseini]

You: hey -

Me: don't you ever stop to think about how Ken Ichijouji is an absolutely fascinating character study in what jealousy and depression can do to a person? he, before even being infected by the dark seed, wished for his own brother to die, because his brother wouldn't let him have the device that suddenly fell from the sky. and yet his whole thing is that he is "the kind one" which, typically in kids shows, would mean he is 100% kind 100% of the time, i mean for fucks sake this is the same show where the crest of light goes to the girl name Hikari like subtlety is not the name of the game. yet they let Ken be shown at the limits of kindess - you cannot be kind 100% of the time especially when others do not reciprocate the same kind of kindness you give in spades. as a young kid, you are taught to always be kind, however as you grow older, you learn that kindness takes on many forms and being kind is exhausting and it needs to recharged every so often, especially if your kindness is not received well by the other nor given back to you. and when Ken learned this lesson at the cost of losing his brother to his own dumb wish, the dark seed gave him the option to never be kind without feeling guity, because what's the point of kindness if no one reciprocates. what's the point of kindness if it can't save your family. what's the point of kindness if YOU, the kind one, caused nothing but pain to your family. and so he (though, forcibly) took the easy way out of never being kind and inflicting nothint but pain because once again: that was all he had done before; only to snap out of it once he realized history was repeating itself... and in the end, it was all because of him

You: i was going to as how your day was but ok

[ladyofthecastleproject]

The Knight and the Detective

[AO3 version]

Summary:

Ken vs Lightnimon showdown, Fight the Knight!! The detective (prince) Ichijouji Ken finally reaches his conclusions and unmask the mysterious yet terrifying digimon's secrets.

[Note: It takes place in 2008; this is one of my favorite drabbles btw]

The dark night didn’t stop Ichijouji Ken from running after the mysterious shadow who had been spotted. He let the group sleep, and then with Wormmon he dived into the forest.

His investigation was leading him to a conclusion -- The mysterious digimon named ‘Lightnimon’ who had been a hot topic through the Digital World as some terrifying savior for the victims of Frostmon and Ranamon’s armies, had not been alone. He got an accomplice, a partner which probably had been doing all the dirty job for him.

However, Ken did not believe it could be him . He’s a nice person and wouldn’t hide behind a mask or pretend to be who he isn’t. The time he had done this on Valentine’s Day five years ago, Ken immediately snapped him out of it. But why would this now be an option?

Unmasking Lightnimon became Ken’s priority. If he were a digimon, then this means Daisuke had yet to be found. However, what if…

“I can’t think about it being a possibility” Ken shook his head.

“What’s wrong Ken-chan?” Wormmon frowned, he was on Ken’s back.

“Nothing… Do… Do you think that that silhouette we saw was Lightnimon?”

“Hmmm… Maybe?”

“I’d hope to be Daisuke though…” Ken whispered, “Where did you go, you dumbass…”

“If it’s not him, what should we do?” Wormmon asked this time.

“Maybe we can fight… or retreat to call for the others” Ken replied, musing about his plans.

“I… I sense something…”

“Huh?”

“Right there!!” Wormmon stared at the unknown, and threw his silk web at the bushes. Something the web hit and stuck on it. So, Ken took the other end of the silk from Wormmon’s mouth and held it tightly.

“We know you’re here. Show yourself, whoever you are!”

“My my…. You’re quite smart hm?”

That voice…

“Who’s there?!”

“What, you have been looking for me and don’t even know my name!?”

“Show yourself!” Ken repeated, gritting his teeth.

The silk started to loose as the digimon-or-human appeared from the bushes. The Lighdramon armor revealed that it wasn’t no one else than…

“It’s him, the digimon were talking about him!” Wormmon gasped.

“Who me? Ah yes, I forgot I became pretty famous” Lightnimon shrugged, “Anyway, isn’t past your bedtime Ichijouji-kun?”

Ken felt so much anger at that mysterious enemy (?) sassing him. But, instead of losing his mind, he smirked.

“I don’t sleep when I’m investigating something. Say, what makes you think you’re different from us? You said you and us have the same goal, but also threatened us to not mess with your plans. This is quite contradictory, don’t you think?”

“Kh… You…”

“Ah, this reminds me of someone who tends to lose his coolness once dealing with some critique.”

Then Lightnimon started to laugh, louder and louder.

“You think I am someone you know?” he said with a serious tone of voice, “Ichijouji-kun, you know nothing about me, but I do know you. Or you think slipping back into this cocky Digimon Kaiser persona would intimidate me?”

“You lost your mind!! I’m trying to make you get back to your senses!”

“Again you keep insisting I’m someone you know… Sigh, you’re so boring. I’m going off--”

“You won’t escape this time! Wormmon!”

Wormmon jumped from Ken’s back and evolved to Stingmon. The insectoid digimon flew in Lightnimon’s direction, but then the digimon got blocked by a Lighdramon-motif Glaive. This probably made Ken realize he was right about not only Miyako and Iori had gotten such weaponry based on their Digimentals of Sincerity and Reliability.

“I knew it… You’re him.” Ken clenched his fists, but this commentary kept stuck in his mind.

“You got one of those too!?” Stingmon exclaimed.

“Tsk, I stole it from your friend.”

“If you’re not him…” Ken said aloud, “Then where is he!?”

“You want to know? I can’t tell you where he is” he held the glaive on guard “It would put his life at risk.”

“If you know… We will make you tell it!” Stingmon attempted another kick, but Lightnimon dodged it “Where’s Daisuke-san and V-mon!?”

“Are you ignoring me!? I said I CAN’T tell that! His life’s in danger, you all saw Frostmon saying he was dead!”

“That information was incorrect though” Ken said seriously, glaring at him “The Digital Gate can only be opened by a D-3. The gate to the Digital World was locked, but someone managed to open it. Daisuke is alive, and you also confirmed it.”

“Yes, but which part of ‘His life is in danger so I can’t tell where to find him’ you two did NOT understand!?” He used the glaive to block Stingmon’s kick again, then repelled the digimon with it.

“You will tell us or else…!!” Stingmon and Ken said together.

“Or else what, you will destroy me knowing I know where he is and then ruin the possibilities of finding him again?” behind that helmet, he was smirking.

“We won’t kill you!”

“Oh interesting~ Well then, I’m not alone and you know it.” Then he snapped his fingers, making a wild claw come from the shadows.

“What?!” Stingmon dodged, and stood in front of Ken, “Is…”

“As expected, he indeed has a partner-in-crime.”

“Impressive! As expected from the prodigy genius boy” Lightmon clapped his hands and laughed, and Ken cringed at being called 'genius' by him “Now if you excuse me, I have to go. There’s more enemies around and I can’t let them attack those innocent lives.”

“We… We won’t give up!”

“Ah, you still want to fight” and then he sighed, “Isn’t it a disadvantage for you? Two against one?”

“Kh…” Ken bit his lips, “Fine, you won. You can go, but before… Allow me to ask one more question.”

“Another one?” Lightnimon said, totally uninterested in it, “Fine, fine… Go ahead. If it is about your friend he’s fine and safe but I can’t tell you where he’s hiding--”

“Oh no, I know Daisuke is an idiot but can survive alone. My question is about you though.”

Ken smirk was denouncing some tricky question, or a trap. He couldn’t fall on it.

“If you’re not Daisuke, then how do you manage to get his partner to evolve?”

Wh-what!? How did he…

Stingmon had taken that distraction to attack the clawed monster, revealing Fladramon from the bushes.

“S-shoot…!!” he muttered.

“Answer me, Lightnimon… Or should I say...”

“Fladramon, now!”

“W-what are you do--”

Fladramon’s form changed to a crimson armored version of himself, and wings of flame appeared from his back, causing a huge explosion in which both him and Lightnimon used to escape as Stingmon couldn’t pass through the flames.

“Ken-chan, he escaped…!”

“Darn it, you moron…!!” Ken thought, now knowing that Lightnimon wasn’t a digimon at all and yes…

“I’m sorry Da-- It mean, Lightnimon. I messed this up…” BurningFladramon said, holding Lightnimon in his arms.

“It’s not your fault, buddy… Ichijouji Ken’s an amazing detective after all.”

 “But now he knows…”

“Well I suppose that cannot be helped, as long he doesn’t spread the word and put their lives at risk. The trees have ears y’know?”

“Was… Was that a…”

“No, I meant literally. If any digimon from those two’s army heard us, this might put everyone’s lives in danger.”

“Don’t you think it’s the right moment to reveal ourselves?”

Daisuke did not respond, he was thoughtful. Something in his mind was going on and BurningFladramon knew.

“I’ve… Turned into some despicable person right now. Except for Mimi-san, Palmon and Gummymon… All of them do not like me. Do you think if I reveal myself they would understand?”

“We’re all friends, of course they will.”

“... But not now, we need to keep beating those meanies and save villages. We will settle this some other time.”

“Right…”

“Should we tell the others?” After Stingmon had put out the fire to prevent it hitting more and more trees and the local towns, he returned to Wormmon form.

“Hmm… I think we can--” Suddenly, his D-terminal beeped, “Huh?”

Ken took his device from his pocket and opened it. He noticed Daisuke had sent a message to him:

Ken, for the sake of everyone… DON’T tell anyone what you know. You might be putting everyone in danger if you do that. Wait for the right time, I trust you. P.S.: Put out the fire and uh, sorry for lying.

“What does he mean by ‘wait for the right time’ Ken-chan?”

“I guess he’s still been tracked” Ken mused, “If the enemies know.... They could find him wandering alone and then…”

“I don’t like that, he should’ve come back to us.”

“I know Daisuke is not a genius, but… He might have a reason for this. His ideas usually backfire, like now. So I’m concerned.”

“He admitted it was him, so I guess… We should keep it a secret like he asked us.”

“I think the same, but he’s a terrible liar. This might only work if he’s not talking at all.”

“I agree.”

... Sigh, what do you have in mind, Daisuke…

[vobomon]

Affection -- A Digimon 02 Drabble

Osamu Ichijouji is not used to physical contact and affection. It is one of his flaws. Something that most people never notice because he puts on a brave face in public. 

He flinches when his younger brother attempts to hug him or tugs on his arm – hoping desperately to show him something funny that he saw on the television.

He pulls back when Ryo Akiyama tries to grab his hand in a desperate attempt to show some form of comfort. 

He feels a chill run up his spine when his dear mother pats him on his head and applauds him with another “well done” and “good job.” He grits his teeth and holds back a growl. 

All this affection feels so alien to him. But he smiles and walks to his room, hoping for some peace and quiet. But he knows who is waiting for him before he even turns around.

“Osamu?”

Ryo is never one to hide his presence well around him.

“What’s wrong this time?”

“Nothing.” Osamu spits out the acidic words and he knows that it stings. 

“Why do you care anyway?”

It tastes terrible in his mouth and he can’t bring himself to look at Ryo’s expression but he knows that his companion is strong. He has heard it all before. Osamu doesn’t do well to hide his true feelings around him. He has been cruel to Ryo before. Too cruel. 

“You know why I care.”

And now it's Osamu’s turn to feel the pain and sting of those words because of course he knows the truth. No matter how cruel he is to Ryo… he just never will leave.

“But why?” Osamu finally turns around. And now they are seeing each other; staring into each other’s eyes. He can not put up a brave face anymore. The facade of his demeanor begins to break. 

He is not powerful like Ryo. He could never save the world. He could never make the tough choices that Ryo could.

The tears are stinging his eyes now. They are fogging up his glasses. 

Ryo walks closer to him and Osamu sees him reach his hand toward him. And in one fluid moment, he slaps the hand away.

“Stop pretending to care about me!” 

He can see that his hand is turning red now from the impact of his slap. But Ryo continues to smile.

“I told you, Osamu.”

Ryo. His Ryo. His darling Ryo.

His lip quivers as the tears fall down his cheek.

And Ryo reaches his red hand up to wipe away the tears. 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

And Osamu feels himself melt in Ryo’s embrace.

Indeed… he hates physical contact but no matter how much he runs from it, he knows that there is still a piece of him that craves the feeling of a gentle touch.

It is the reason he stops shaking when his younger brother hugs him and Osamu smiles softly at seeing how happy it made him. 

It is the reason that the cold chill leaves his body when his mother’s sweet words of praise enter his ears.

It is the reason that he grabs hold of Ryo’s hand after pulling away a moment earlier. 

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise…” Ryo repeats.

“And I’m not going anywhere either.” Osamu replies.

And the two embrace each other.

[earlgreymon]

digidestined's fanon birthdays

so i saw a lot of taichi's fanart on twitter, mostly from japanese artists, wishing him a happy birthday a few days ago, and i thought: "...wait, i thought we don't have official birthday for these kids?"

and indeed we don't. however, i found a list of fanon birthdays which seems quite popular in japan. once again, i have to emphasise that these are not canon. the closest information we have are 1) sora's birthday is somewhere before summer (our war game), and; 2) miyako is a gemini. if you see the below list, their birthdays are FAR from that, which confirms that this isn't official stuff.

but hey, if you love to join the celebration by making birthday fanart, this will do! and if you are like me who loves writing in detail yet lacking the creativity to assign birthdays, this information can be useful too.

taichi: july 15

yamato: april 23

sora: october 25

koushiro: november 6

mimi: july 20

jyou: may 24

takeru: august 3

hikari: december 16

daisuke: may 11

miyako: october 18

iori: september 27

ken: july 31

source: (1)(2)

is there any explanation for these dates? not that i know of; i'll update if i found one. BUT if you love zodiacs/birth-chart/astrology/etc and need explanations behind the birthdays, i will gladly refer you to this awesome post from my beloved friend @dutchforstrangers and read her well-thought analysis on #DFS Digimon Astrology Journey!

[izzyizumi]

undefined

Digimon Adventure/02/tri./Kizuna x Ghost Game {Ep #19} (A.M.V) [Pre-view] ~ “The Dragon Boy” [As this is a pre-view, it is Un-finished {For now}] featuring DUO/O.T.P.: Ken Ichijouji x Daisuke Motomiya {Eventual! Focus}/{as Ship} [Other Adventure Chosen {notably (brief appearances of) 02!Koushiro} may also appear slightly more in the full version] From: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi {“Spirited Away”} Digimon Adventure 02 (C) Toei Animation/“““Akiyoshi Hongo””” {Using symbols in places / tags to keep from showing in Search} (This is a FAN-work; I do not own DigiAdvs or OST usage!)

Notes: - Currently un-finished, we’ll see if I can ever finish it effectively - Maybe the upcoming “02″ thing may inspire me to finish it?! - Minimal spoilers for the very first scenes of Tri and Kizuna (Chosen are not shown, only sceneries for emphasis/parallels) - Ghost Game scenes are used primarily for showcasing yet more scenery/thematic parallels, however, Perhaps something more “unusual” is also going on? - While it is not connected directly to my Alternate Universes fic-“verse”, {most of my current works involve Taichi and Koushiro A.U.s focus}; this could have perhaps been a part or at least concept of my original “fic-verse” for 02?! (Maybe they slightly connect?!)

{And then this series keeps providing me with quality lore, so!}

{Additional note: this post is mainly intended AS SHIPs/PERSONAL PREFERENCE. please remember + RESPECT this when interacting please tag only as the ship name[s] and DO NOT tag as only “brotp” or the like only*, thank you!} (*It is ok if you tag as “friendship” or the like along WITH the ship!!) {Failure to acknowledge interacting rules WILL result in a block}

[ventrios]

i know it’s true so please tell me you feel it too

[amethyst-geek]

What they could do with the Olympos 12 in a Digimon Next Gen Story

So something I found strange about Digimon Savers is that the Merukimon is stated in-universe to be a member of the Olympos 12, and yet he is the only member of said group to appear in Savers. So here is my theory regarding what might have happened to the rest as as my predictions for a role they have in a hypothetical Digimon next gen story (for the sake of context, assume this is a crossover between the first 6 series, or at least Adventure and Savers)

A few centuries after the Olympos 12 defeated the 7 Demon Lords, a vengeful minion of the Demon Lords poisoned most of the Olympos 12 by slipping a cursed potion in their drinks during a feast, which most them drank except for Mereukimon and Bacchusmon (who were about to drink the laced punch but stopped when they noticed soemthing happening to their fellow Olympos 12 members). The cursed potion/poison caused the the Olympos 12 members who drank it to revert to Digieggs, and thanks to the effects of the potion, they will stay Digieggs until the eggs come within proximity with a compatible human (though the minion refrained from revealing this clause). So Merukimon and Bacchusmon placed the eggs in special temple for safekeeping until they revive them. 

A few years prior to the events of the Savers, Bacchusmon got so drunk that he feel asleep just before Kurata’s first massacre and didn’t wake up until just after the events of Savers (hence his own absence during Savers). 

Later, a few years after Tri, Claude (my nickname for dark Gennai) goes to to the Savers Digital World to steal the digi-eggs of some of the Olympos 12  (specifically the eggs of Junomon, Marsmon, Venusmon, Minervamon, Neptunemon, and possibly Vulcanusmon) and took them back to his world. However, he wasn’t able to get the eggs to hatch. Then, sometime later, while Claude was spying on the Ken and Miyako as Miyako was in labor with her and and Ken’s daughter, Claude noticed that Junomon’s egg had started to move around. Junomon’s eggs then managed to break free and flew to the Ichijouji residence where it hatched and became the partner of Ken and Miyako’s daughter. Rinse and repeat with the eggs of Neptunemon, Venusmon, Marsmon, Minevamon (and Vulcanusmon if he’s not partnered with someone in the Savers universe) 

Who they are partnered with and their pre-evolutions are

Dianamon- Natsuki Norstein (the OC daughter I came up with for Tohma)

Apollomon- If Masaru somehow has a child (probably a boy), then this child would almost certainly be Apollomon’s partner; if Masaru is childless (which would probably be more likely seeing as he lives in the Digital World), then Apollomon’s partner could be another child of Tohma, perhaps Natsuki’s twin (I do headcanon Tohma as having several children). 

Jupitermon- partnered with Suzume (the daughter of Ikuto and Chika); Rookie form- Falcomon (the version that actually looks like a falcon, not the version that looks like an owl, mainly because Ikuto is already partnered with the owl version, so if Jupitermon has Falcomon for its rookie form, it’s gonna have to be the the original version that actually looks like a falcon, unless he takes a note from Gatomon and has his champion form as the default form); Champion form- Aegiomon; Ultimate/Perfect form- Aegiochusmon

Ceresmon- partnered with Haruna Mori (Yoshino’s daughter) 

Junomon- partnered with Kumiko Ichijouji 

Marsmon- partnered with Isamu (Taichi’s kid)- child form is Liollmon, adult for Liamon, perfect form Grapleomon

Venusmon_ Yamato and Sora’s daughter

Neptunemon- Nobu Kido (Joe’s kid); adult form is Dolphmon, perfect form is Divemon

Minervamon- she is partned with with Izzy’s daughter or Iori’s daughter (whom I call Reina) 

Vulcanusmon- either he is partnered up with Iori’s daughter (if she’s not partnered with Minervamon), or he is instead partnered with someone from the Savers continuity and his partner is either a) another child of Tohma’s, b) the child of Kouichirou (Masaru’s friend from episode 11) or c) the token “not the child of anyone of consequence” child.

Edit: added the evolutionary lines for Neptunemon and Marsmon

Edit: I  recently learned that the Digimon franchise consistently presents Aegiomon’s rookie form be Elecmon, so let’s go with that instead of the original version of Falcomon)

[amaryllisblackthorn]

part 3

so. it’s been a while. i had this pretty much written up months ago but i petered out near the end which is why it took so long to post it. 

so this covers my thoughts&observations on ep37+38 regarding takeru+ken post-kaiser. i’ll be posting another post later summing up my overall thoughts.

part 1 | part 2

[ep37]

ken tends to have a lot of anger in his voice when talking to archnemon, which makes sense. it's personal. and just like yamato said; ken and takeru share similar feelings.

daisuke: we worked so hard :D (looking back and forth between friends) takeru: you're right C: daisuke: right? right?

ken and iori aren’t looking at daisuke until daisuke goes 'right right'. ken looks down and iori looks at daisuke. daisuke notices something's up with ken. 'what’s wrong ichijouji? what? if you have something to say, say it'. further example of how jogress partners tend to notice when something's bothering them.

ken reflects his thoughts that if the darkness isn’t completely destroyed immediately it will continue to absorb its surroundings and produce more 'sad lives' like bwg; hikari's thoughts are that ken is also referring to himself and how he created Kimeramon. this is something that daisuke and miyako are implied to be aware of as well; the way takeru and iori are looking at ken when he talks also suggests they're aware of it as well.

it's kind of fitting, then, that takeru speaks up. after all, he's the one who kind of inadvertently brought this to ken's mind back in ep 34.

takeru first says ‘i don't think so/I think differently’ in response to ken, directly to him, which has ken react in surprise and turn his head to face takeru.

takeru goes on to say that 'sure, darkness is terrible, and we'd feel peace of mind if we were able to get rid of it completely, but I'm sure that's impossible’. ken repeats "impossible?" takeru then looks slightly away, as though he's deep in thought/thinking of how to say what he’s thinking, and says how where there is light, there is darkness, which has hikari respond with 'the brighter the light, the darker the shadow, right?' which has takeru turn his head back to the group (and ken) as he responds 'yes', adding 'that's why it's important not to lose sight of the light inside you'. focus on ken as he repeats 'not losing sight of the light inside of you'.

now what does this mean? what is its importance? bc it's definitely significant. but how?

I think this is the first time since ep28, where takeru told ken to not act cool, that I think takeru has directly talked specifically to ken post-kaiser stuff.

up until now, Takeru's stance regarding Ken was externally vague at best, as he was the only one who hadn't made his position clear to Ken. Ken generally knows where Daisuke, Miyako, and Hikari side, and where Iori sides -- or at least where Iori sided, and he doesn’t really have any reason to think he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t really have any idea where takeru sides, as takeru hasn't made it clear to him.

Takeru's willing to work with him, sure. he's civil enough. but to be fair iori has also been working with ken and being civil for the most part too, esp post ep28. this doesn't necessarily reflect their personal feelings towards him.

what Ken knows is Takeru told him he was way over his head regarding the power of darkness in ep19 and physically assaulted him with a significant anger present, warned him that playing around with the power of darkness would have grave consequences if he didn't stop (and it did), told him they'd settle their 'match' (which was really just takeru beating up ken) next time, and lectured him on digimon being alive like the rest of them, before wormmon died. (and said ‘he’s dead’ after wormmon died).

what ken knows is, after wormmon died, takeru told him, somewhat upset, not to act cool in response to his offer to kill archnemon so the other kids wouldn't have to, and then suggesting a (temporary) nonlethal alternative. even more, ken knows that takeru has repeated the sentiment that using the power of darkness to create 'unhappy life' and destruction is 'unforgivable' with a similar intensity that was present in the ep19 encounter--which is something ken did. ken also knows that takeru declined to attend the meeting at daisuke's house in a suspicious manner, followed by iori.

it's not a stretch to imagine that ken figures that while takeru is willing to work with him and be civil, takeru finds what ken did to be unforgivable and personally does not like ken.

and I don't think that's Takeru's intention. the fact that takeru seemed to express possible/potential concern over ken's guilt motivating him, I don't think Takeru means for Ken to beat himself up when he says those things. and in this scene we have Ken feeling guilty, which is presumably understood by everyone, and disheartened. and takeru kind of reaching out, in a way.

there are several ways that what takeru said could be taken I feel.

for one, it's a hopeful (heh) thing. when ken expresses his thought that as long as there is darkness, the cycle will continue. takeru expresses that darkness winning is not an inevitability as long as you don't lose the light inside you.

it works on a personal level, too. it's okay if ken continues to struggle with the darkness -- it's unfortunate and not fun, but that doesn't make him a bad person -- as long as he holds onto the light inside of him, and there is light inside of him.

there's also something about the way qinglongmon said some stuff. earlier he claimed that "in order to bring the one swallowed by darkness back, it was necessary to temporarily create the digimental of miracles with the crest of kindness engulfed by darkness." he then later reiterates/rephrases Takeru's feelings when expressing what hope means -- "and hope means not to lose the light even when engulfed by darkness."

ken lost sight of the light inside of his heart for a while (his kindness, you could say), but he found it again after wormmon's sacrifice, as a result of a 'miracle' (tech found it in ep23). and it was a miracle that ken was saved before it was too late! the important thing for ken to do now is not to lose sight of it again.

and aside from the physical destruction the power of darkness can be used to create, takeru also knows about falling victim to the darkness from emotional vulnerability, for lack of better explanation. I can't recall exactly what he knew about Yamato's experience or what he picked up when witnessing Sora's, but Takeru more or less knows how people can fall prey to it. Yamato was engulfed by darkness, falling further and further into it; he was lost and ended up doing some misguided things as a result -- seriously fighting Taichi (in front of his little brother!) and when it really wasn't the time, for one. thanks to Gabumon, though, Yamato was able to find his way back. which is why I don't think Takeru would really hold it against Ken once Takeru had felt Ken had changed from before, and furthermore, Takeru knows that you can come back from it.

whatever Takeru's intent is, his meaning is -- naturally -- one of hope, and it's directed towards Ken.

and Takeru's words, particularly about not losing sight of the light inside you, seem to... impact? reach? ken, for lack of a better word, in some way, to an extent. 

upon further thinking, it actually kind of reminds me of ep23 at the village of beginnings. when the baby digimon tell Ken “What is done cannot be undone. What you did was something unforgivable.” and “You can’t erase the past. Everything is part of you: the good and the bad are both part of you.”

while what ken did was unforgivable [kimeramon], he has to accept the good and the bad are both part of him. and ken tends to focus on accepting the bad as part of him, but he also has to accept the good part of him, too, in the sense that he acknowledges that there is good -- that he’s not solely a bad person. and maybe the good that’s a part of him is sort of analogous to the light inside him -- that despite being engulfed in darkness and all he’s done, there is light inside him, and the important thing is to not lose sight of it (again). 

it also kind of reminds me of a line in ‘beat hit’, the jogress song. ‘There is light and shadow in both the heart and in the world. That’s testing you, the never ending battle.’ [Hikari to kage ga aru kokoro ni mo sekai ni mo / Sore wa kimi wo tameshite iru kesshite owaru koto no nai tatakai]

i don’t have too much to say here at this point about this other than encouraging others to throw their two cents in about what they think, bc this is definitely a significant moment. but in what way? 

not really related to takeru+ken but later, when qinglongmon talks about the crests of hope and light, hikari turns to takeru and smiles saying 'our crests!' and tho Takeru's lookin back at her, I think, he's not smiling. which I find interesting. In ep34 it was shown that takeru can go from serious&intense to ^.^ pretty quickly and smoothly. I don't know what if anything it signifies but I found it interesting. idk

later, at the restaurant.

miyako and daisuke are fighting over the Chinese bun daisuke took; takeru holds out a bun to ken and says 'ichijouji-kun. they're delicious. will you eat with us?' and while ken was initially surprised by Takeru's action, he gives a small (cute!) smile which grows a little more as he says "thanks! :D" and accepts Takeru's offering. takeru is smiling at ken in the background as ken opens/splits the the bun and gives half to leafmon. leafmon says 'ken-chan, eating with friends is great, isn't it?' and ken replies 'it is'! and after this exchange takeru is still seen smiling at ken as he watches on.

so not only has ken accepted being nakama, he's accepted being friends, too! good for him! and takeru seems happy about that, too, which is swell.

also an interesting thing I noticed is that throughout this episode after qinglonmon appears, takeru, iori, and ken are often showed/grouped together in the same frame/shot. 

takeru, iori, and ken are shown in frame when takeru goes 'is this what bwg was waiting for?' when qinglongmon appears. takeru, iori, and ken are once again shown in the same frame when ken goes "then, I..." after daisuke goes 'the dark towers seal his powers?' 

then takeru and ken are in same frame, to the side, when archnemon and mummymon walk back in with the two other digimon subdued, archnemon saying 'oh well you found out' re: her/their goal ('building as many dark towers as possible and destroying this world's balance'). this shot is repeated after archnemon says 'but then you got the wrong idea, joined the chosen children, and started to destroy them'. 

then takeru, iori, and ken are shown in the same frame again when takeru says 'so that's why they can only reach perfect level at certain times'. iori turns to look at takeru when he talks. iori says 'that's what koushirou-san explained to us a while back right?' and takeru and ken turn to look at him. iori turns back to qinglongmon 'he was talking about qinglongmon and the others' ken and then takeru turn back to face qinglongmon.

daisuke, hikari, and miyako are together in the same frame when daisuke and miyako say 'that must be us' & 'yeah. daisuke, me, and...'. the next shot is of iori with parts of ken and takeru shown in frame when iori goes 'myself'. 

after bwg screams and goes off into the sky, there's a shot of daisuke+hikari+miyako, and then a shot of takeru+iori+ken. daisuke+hikari+miyako are again shown when daisuke says that 'now you can recover your lost power, right?', to which qinglongmon replies that not right away but he'll plant seeds of light in the meantime where the holy stones once were, and takeru+iori+ken are shown in the shot when ken echoes ‘seeds of light?'

then, daisuke+hikari+miyako and ken with most of his head cut off are in the same shot after ken talks about how unless all darkness is destroyed, it'll absorb its surroundings etc. then there's the focus on hikari thinking that ken was also referring to himself, and then there's a shot of takeru+iori+ken+daisuke, with the focus zooming on ken until takeru speaks up. even in the group shot when qinglongmon says ‘however, it does not mean that all threats have been eliminated', there’s a bit of a gap between Ken and Daisuke, dividing the kids into three and three (Takeru, Iori, Ken & Daisuke, Hikari, Miyako).

it’s interesting, especially considering the relevance these three have had during Takeru&Iori’s (pre)jogress arc.  

[ep38]

ken is standing apart from the other kids. wormmon basically encourages him to give his invitations to the kids, but ken asks 'but will they accept?' and his hand is shaking. he's so nervous! even though his relationships with the other kids have improved. which is understandable. I suffer from social anxiety I get it.

it's reasonable to expect daisuke, miyako, and hikari to accept it, especially the former two. it's reasonable to expect iori /not/ to accept it (from kens pov). takeru has the most room for doubt, since he did make the offering of friendship more or less the prior episode, but is still a rather mysterious dude.

wormmon tells him it'll be fine. daisuke, in daisuke fashion, noticed something's up with ken and runs up to him. 'what are you doing? what do you have there? c'mon what is it?' ken, super nervous (aah!!), tells them that his mother said he should invite all of his friends to a Christmas party at their place. he lifts the invitations slowly, hand trembling. and the kids (minus iori) are excited and run over.

ken's hand with the invitations is still shaking and starts to retreat/withdraw, as if he's expecting a rejection, when he asks if they'd like to come. it makes me really feel for him honestly he's so nervous :( but when ken, uncertainly, asks if they would like to come, takeru immediately asserts "of course! [Mochiron yo]" and ken goes " :o ". takeru has his hand already out, directly in front of him, smiling, and ken lifts up the invitations and goes ' thanks !”', blushing, to which takeru says 'same to you. i'm happy you invited us.' and goes ^.^

the fact that takeru is the one to first accept ken’s invitation is intentional from the show. they emphasize ken's shaking hand with the invitation retreating. ken has doubts. and takeru clears up those doubts with his confident 'of course!' and 'I'm happy you invited us'.

and this is also takeru clearing up his own position, which has been relatively unclear until the last episode. takeru goes a step further from last episode by making it clear that of course he wants to come and he's happy they invited him.

and taking in Takeru's 'I'm happy you invited us' as well as his smiling at ken at the end of last episode, it seems that Takeru's happy that ken seems to be ... healing? in a way, for lack of a better word, which kind of ties into his apparent concern over kens motivations re: guilt earlier on. this kind of is also related to the end of the episode when sora looks at hikari and takeru and says that kens 'really changed, hasn't he?' bc it's not that he changed from kaiser to ken, it's that he's also changed in that he's happier. and everyone's glad about it too. also shown by the kids’ reaction when ken laughs at the party.

also takeru goes to ken’s party instead of supporting his brother at his concert. not that yamato probably minds or anything but i thought that was neat. i do like that koushirou and jou came to yamato’s concert too though that’s sweet heh

[pulaasul]

Digimon Adventure Tri: Past 01

Takaishi Takeru mentioned in a letter to Mochizuki that Daisuke and the others were healing. What Takeru neglected to mention to the bereaved Chosen Child were the circumstances on "why" they were healing in the first place.

FFN I AO3

------------

I wanted to continue the supposed things that were left out of Tri. Tri was just half a season of Digimon when it should've have had more than 50 episodes, whereas Tri only had 26 episodes over the course of the Movie series.

I will use the Japanese terms used rather than the English ones, apart from a few exceptions.

-----------

Taichi, Sora and Yamato decided to visit the chosen children that Nishijima-sensei saved alongside Taichi.

They knew Takeru and Hikari had already visited a few times, Koushiro and Mimi had visited before the latter's flight to America.

The only chosen child the four got to see on a daily basis was Jyou, but even that was limited to visiting and checking on them.

"Really senpai there's nothing to apologize." Daisuke dismissed Taichi's apology as if nothing happened. "We lied to you about everything, it's no wonder why you didn't notice that we were missing." He sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

"S-still Daisuke-kun…" Sora trailed off, looking away.

"Don't worry Sora-san." Miyako chimed in. "No hard feelings."

"If you're sure…" Yamato trailed off.

"Takeru-san and Hikari-san already came together a few times." Iori spoke up. "Like we told them, there's nothing to forgive." He shook his head.

"We walked into that fight on our own." Miyako supplied.

"Not necessarily." Ken shook his head. "Himekawa-san was the one who gave us that tip."

"She's not here, is she?" Daisuke's looked around the room.

The Motomiya's words got the other resting children in the hospital to look around for the woman named Himekawa.

The older chosen children looked at each other before staring at their bedridden friends in both worry and pity. They remembered how antsy they got after their first adventure in the Digital World. It was almost sad to see them this antsy when their first adventure, or at least Daisuke's Miyako's and Iori's first adventures were safe, being able to return home at the end of the day.

Another thing the elder chosen children couldn't help but notice that among the four children, Daisuke was the one who was the most vigilant. They wondered what Daisuke and the others experienced when they were trapped in the Digital World.

"No, she's not here." Yamato shook his head. "She's missing for months now."

"She's most likely dead according to Nishijima-sensei." Taichi supplied.

"You know Nishijima-a-ow." Miyako yelled but was cut off from the pain on her abdomen.

"Easy Miyako." Sora was immediately on the younger girl's side. "You're still recovering from whatever injured all of you."

"Question still stands Taichi-senpai." Daisuke voiced out. "Don't trust Nishijima-san." He warned. "He's working for Himekawa-san."

The older chosen children narrowed their eyes at the warning. They knew Nishijima reported to Himekawa.

They also knew of his sacrifice to save Taichi and the kids in front of them.

"Nishijima-sensei is dead Daisuke." Taichi told the younger children somberly.

"Taichi…" Yamato trailed off.

"H-he's dead?" Iori narrowed his eyes at the revelation.

"Both Himekawa-san and Nishijima-san are dead?" Ken questioned the three chosen children in the room.

"Jury is still out for Himekawa-san." Taichi answered the question. "She went to the digital world after it was rebooted."

"H-how?" Miyako voiced out. "She…"

"They were also fellow Chosen Children." Taichi sighed. "Himekawa-san and Nishijima-sensei were the chosen children before our group was sent to the Digital World."

"A fellow chosen child…" Daisuke trailed off.

"They lost their partners didn't they?" Ken questioned.

"Only Himekawa-san lost her'." Taichi responded. "At least that's what Nishijima-sensei told me."

"How did Nishijima-san die?" Miyako asked.

"He died saving you guys." Yamato looked at Taichi.

Taichi was clenching his fists remembering Nishijima-sensei's sacrifice to save him and the children bedridden before him.

He was willing to find ways to save the both of them while saving Daisuke and the others.

In the end, Nishijima-sensei chose to sacrifice his life for the sake of the children, Taichi included.

"In any case how did you meet Nishijima-sensei in the first place?" Sora asked. "We weren't able to meet them until the infected Digimon started appearing here."

Ken and Daisuke looked at each other. They really weren't sure how they met Himekawa-san in the first place.

"We don't know." Daisuke admitted. "All I know was that Himekawa-san approached Ken and I."

"She immediately told us that the Digital World was in danger and we needed to save it." Ken supplied.

"That was when Iori and I were told of the dangers." Miyako added.

"We thought it was suspicious that she insisted on not contacting you guys, they even stressed out not telling Takeru-san and Hikari-san."

"Our task was merely to gather information." Ken continued. "We reported everything back either to Himekawa-san or Nishijima-san."

"Himekawa-san was also the one who suggested that we lie to you guys." Daisuke supplied. "We were transferred to different schools across Japan." He added. "Those papers are legit, we were exchange students into four different public schools."

"We attended for a while, before Himekawa-san got us that tip."

"If you were transfer students, how come no one was at Ichijouji-kun's residence?" Sora asked. "Someone used Ichijouji-kun's Digimon Emperor persona to fight against us."

"That Dark Gennai is really twisted." Daisuke hissed.

"Okay Taichi, Sora, Yamato visiting hours are over." Jyou announced his arrival as he went inside the room.

"It's that late already?" Sora questioned as she looked at her phone.

"But…" Taichi trailed off.

"Don't worry about us senpai." Daisuke grinned. "We'll be fine." He assured his senior. "Jyou-san's here to take care of us."

"They're in good hands Taichi." Jyou nodded.

"Tell us if something comes up alright." Yamato ordered.

"Will do." Miyako nodded.

(linebreak)

Days has passed before the four chosen children were given clearance to be released. During those days, their respective families arrived back to Odaiba aborting their search for their children.

The tearful reunion between families really warms the heart of the people who witnessed the event.

Apparently Daisuke's parents were told that he was missing in the prefecture of the school he was transferred to. The Motomiyas decided to search for him once they haven't heard of police who were investigating his disappearance.

The same thing happened with the Hidas, Inoues and Ichijoujis. In fact the Ichijoujis were the first group to search for their missing child.

The Younger Chosen Children were having their meeting inside the middle school Daisuke, Miyako, Takeru and Hikari were attending. It was the only venue were the most of the younger chosen children frequent, with Ken still living in Tamachi and Iori still attending Elementary school.

The only reason Ken was able to attend any and all Chosen Children meetings was through the assurances of Hikari and Daisuke.

"That's everything they told us." Daisuke sighed.

"I thought it was weird how Ichijouji-kun's parents weren't at their residence especially when their son was missing again." Hikari nodded.

"I've never seen my siblings cry for me before." Miyako admitted. "It was nice, but I wished it didn't have to be in that context."

"Same here." Daisuke nodded. "I didn't think they would worry so much about me."

"Of course they would!" Takeru exclaimed. "They're your family."

Daisuke simply shrugged the exclamation while Miyako nodded.

Daisuke, Ken and Miyako were re-enrolled back into their respective middle schools. They were given placement exams to see if they were to repeat their year for the number of days they were absent or will be eligible for promotion once the current academic year concluded.

Iori was also given the same treatment at his school for the same reasons.

Daisuke and Ken were in their 2nd year of Middle School, alongside Takeru and Hikari while Miyako was in her last year of Middle School. Iori on the other hand was in his last year of Elementary School.

Part of the reason for this treatment was the cover story the government cooked up for their absences: Being kidnapped and held for several weeks before being able to escape from their kidnappers clutches.

"Sora-san and Piyomon can reach Ultimate level." Takeru broke the news. "Every one of us actually"

"We get to see Seraphimon and Magnadramon again!" Miyako grinned. "Always wondered why they didn't appear in that wish realm when we were fighting BelialVamdemon."

"That's great!" Daisuke's face lit up. "When Alphamon attacks again, we may actually have a fighting chance."

"You think he'll attack again?" Iori questioned.

"Remember Yggdrasil's plans?" Daisuke responded. "He and Dark Gennai will stop at nothing to find a way to put Yggdrasil's plans in motion." He looked at the window. "Alphamon is one of Yggdrasil's most loyal subjects."

"Alphamon's attack in the real world caused a lot of damage." Hikari offered sadly. "Is there no way to appeal to him?"

"Yggdrasil wants to destroy the human world." Ken offered. "To destroy all humans."

"Their plan to use Meicoomon failed." Takeru objected.

"Demon." Ken held unto Daisuke tightly. "Dagomon."

Hikari held unto Takeru's arms as tight as she could upon hearing the latter's name.

"Dark Gennai and Yggdrasil had many plans in place in case other plans failed." Daisuke offered somberly.

"Using Meicoomon was merely one of them." Miyako interjected.

(linebreak)

On the same day, after the meeting between the younger chosen children concluded, Hikari found herself in her brother's bedroom.

Taichi laid on the floor as he read one of his manga books.

"Daisuke won't join us tomorrow." Hikari reported as she sat on her brother's bed.

"Why?" Taichi asked, curious, he closed the book and went on a sitting position.

Daisuke never missed a meeting between the twelve of them. The one time he voluntarily missed a meeting was when he went to Tamachi and assist Ken years ago.

"He didn't say." Hikari answered honestly.

Over the course of a few days, Hikari noticed a lot of things different from her friends. They were all very different. She could understand to some extent given their experience, she was still skittish around beaches.

She just can't place if this was a good different or a bad one.

"Do you think something's wrong nii-chan?" She questioned her older brother.

"Give them time Hikari." Taichi sat beside her sister. "They went through a lot." He held his sister. "An experience where we weren't there to support them."

"Why didn't we notice that they were missing nii-chan?" Hikari returned her brother's gesture.

"We've all been asking the same questions." Taichi admitted. "I can't imagine what Daisuke's and Miyakos older siblings were feeling when the two of them were missing." He sighed. "I don't what I'd do if you end up missing."

"Probably start fight with Yamato-san." Hikari giggled.

"Are we really that bad Hikari?"

"No." Hikari giggled once more.

"To be honest, I don't think Yamato does either." Taichi hummed.

Taichi really didn't know what he'd do if something were to happen to his younger sister. Had he known that Hikari was once again possessed by Homeostasis for the first time since their first adventure, he would've panicked until either Sora or Yamato would snap him out of it.

[the-digimon-tamer]

Chapter 39 - In The Closet is out now on FanFiction.Net and ArchiveOfOurOwn! Check them out with the links or find it after the break!

Title: The Tamer v2.0 - In HIs Name

Fandom: Digimon

Rating: T

Synopsis: In the next adventure of the Digimon Tamer, the lives of Juri, Rika, and Henry change forever when digimon begin crossing over into the human world. But it’s all just a story, right? Just a book series by an author no one has seen in a long time. Why are they here and can they save their world before something worse follows the digimon?

The Burnt Leaf SUV pulled up in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building and M announced, “This is your stop guys.”

Despite the chaos of their present situation, the trip was relatively quick and calm. It was almost boring despite the chaos going on. The streets which were crowded with traffic - stopped cars trying to get out of the city and crowds of people fleeing on foot - seemed to become instantaneously clear as they made their way through the city. Pile the fighting and the birds swarming over head, and it was a miracle that they got here as quickly as they did. 

There was a small police presence at the entrance but it was obvious they were too out of their depth to actually be of any use. Most of them just ended up gawking helplessly at the bird things as they soared by overhead. The few of them who were of any use spent their time just trying to keep crowds of people inside the building.

“Why are we here?” Rika asked, gazing out the towers that had been the center of the Hypnos Program. The woman unlocked the doors and they flew open of their own accord, “Burnt Leaf policy is to make sure everyone gets to where they need to be when they need to be there. What happens next is up to you guys.”

“And that answers my question how?” Rika asked. The woman smiled her biggest possible smile  before pushing her out onto the street, “Don’t think too much about it. Just do whatever comes natural.”

“I’m getting sick of people giving us these non-answers,” Rika protested as she stumbled out onto the street. Ryo hurried out to catch her but she’d already steadied herself by then. Still, that didn’t stop him from asking, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Rika said, giving the tire of the SUV a swift kick. Monodramon joined in her kicking too, making her action seem all the more childish and useless. M seemed to laugh mockingly at her and winked, “You kids have fun doing what you do best. And remember, we’re watching you! Good luck!”

With another click, the doors slammed shut and the SUV took off down the street. Henry scratched his head, “So what do we do now?”

“She said she was trying to get us where we needed to be when we needed to be there. I’m not going to lie, that sounds like something only Tamer would say,” Ryo answered grumpily. Rika could see his fists trembling and took hold of them to calm him down, “Hey, calm down. The last thing we need right now is an out of control Cyberdramon.”

That seemed to work, until she realized he was now red from embarrassment instead of anger. It took her a second too long to understand why and she slapped him to hide her own embarrassment, “Idiot.”

“Or maybe that’s exactly what we need,” Henry suggested with a hand to his chin, looking down at Monodramon who’d crossed his arms and started muttering what must’ve been several devious curses at him. He only stopped when Ryo flicked his finger across his head, “No, we’re not doing that. Best case scenario is he gets swallowed absorbed by whatever that...thing is.”

“That’s the best case?” Henry repeated, feeling his mouth falling wide open in horror at how casually Ryo seemed to be handling the idea of losing his partner. Even Monodramon was staring bitterly at his partner. Ryo continued, “The alternative, which is the worse case scenario, is Cyberdramon goes completely out of control - then he and that thing destroy each other and possibly the whole world with it.”

“You seriously think he can do that?” Terriermon asked curiously, eyeing Monodramon who still seemed unsure of what he said. Ryo sighed, “You have no idea what he’s capable of. What he was capable of before I was his partner. There’s no telling when or if that power will come back. And if it does...worse case scenario.”

“Right, so anyone have any other plans?” Rika asked grumpily.

“What are you all doing here?”

All three children and their digimon looked up to see Doctor Kido coming towards them dressed more casually than he had seen before. He was holding an open phone in one hand that he was holding away from his ear, “On my way up. Meet me at the entrance.”

His expression was dour, and he spoke more animatedly than he had before, “You kids shouldn’t be out here.”

“Are you kidding? We’re exactly the ones who need to be out here!” Terriermon declared. Before he could add to that statement, Doctor Kido started ushering them back inside, “No, I mean this isn’t the place to be standing around talking! Get inside before any of those military guys freak out and start shooting. You can practically hear how trigger happy they are from here!”

“What are you even doing here?” Rika asked as he pushed them in through the door, to an entryway busy with staffers hurriedly answering phones and trying to calm a crowd of people who’d rushed inside when all the chaos happened. Several security guards and police officers were trying to maintain some semblance of calm and order, or as much as possible when there were several heavily armed men in the room. And the air turned to terror once they saw the digimon enter the building. 

Screams broke out and the crowd rushed away from the door...from the digimon. Two of the guards aimed their guns at them, “Leave!”

“Get down on the ground!”

“We can’t do both,” Renamon reasoned, “What do you want of us?”

“Down on the ground!” the first barked while the other shouted, “Leave!”

Renamon groaned and looked to the doctor who’d ushered them in, “Are you sure it’s any safer in here than it is out there? I mean at least out there, the men with the guns had other things to shoot at.”

“Really not the time for this,” Doctor Kido fired back, his hands raised just over his head as the armed guards surrounded them. It was just as much a surprise to him as it was to the rest of them they hadn’t started shooting yet. Then again, it was kinda hard to comply with their contradictory orders like that. What were they supposed to do? Drop to the floor and crawl out of the building? Then again, maybe these guys were just as unsure about to do as they were. It wasn’t like digimon regularly walked into the metropolitan building.

“Stand down!” Yamaki’s voice echoed, pushing his way through the guards with several of his agents flanking him. Some were dressed in the typical black suit while others dressed completely in black. Yamaki was glaring daggers at doctor Kido, “I told you to take the side door.”

“I was going to when I saw them standing around at front,” he explained, thumbing at the kids. Yamaki raised an eyebrow at them, “It’s about time. We’ve been looking for you three. Take them upstairs into custody.”

“Custody?” Ryo repeated out loud, his voice just short of exploding at Yamaki. Yamaki gestured at the crowd of people trying to somehow get further away from the digimon and they understood why. Their partners were freaking them out. How could they not? Most of them had only ever seen digimon on the news causing havoc and destroying the city. And if not that, then it was only as a kid’s toy line. They had every reason to be afraid of the digimon. 

Yamaki added at just above a whisper, “It’s just for show for their sake. Let my team escort you upstairs before these people start a riot. Never underestimate how stupid people can be in a crisis.”

Against her better judgment, Rika nodded in agreement and went along with the guards for now. It wasn’t like she had much choice in the matter anyway. Each of the guards pretended to place them in handcuffs before taking them onto an elevator one at a time to take them upstairs. Some in the crowd openly cried out against this, angered that the monsters were being brought further into the building instead of away. Others cheered at seeing the creatures being taken away. For once, they all knew what it was like to be the ire of so many people at the same time. 

And it was irritating.

On the other hand, it was kind of humbling. This was what they had been putting Tamerkato through since this whole mess started.

Their heads cooled once they were safe upstairs in the offices where they found most of the former digidestined gathered along with several of the computer programmers responsible for making the Digital World - their school teacher Miss Kamiya, that ramen shop guy Motomiya, the fashion designer and rock star pair the Ishidas, and the detective and his wife - the Ichijoujis.

Rika took one look around the room and asked, “Where are mom and dad?”

“Yeah, where are our parents?” Henry added, scratching his head at the absence of their parents. After all, their families were a lot more involved in this than they’d initially thought. Detective Ichijouji answered the question quietly, “Either stuck in traffic or having to take the long way around to get here. That thing suddenly appearing like it did has resulted in all the major train routes being shut down and half the streets are clogged with either people trying to get out of the city or the Self Defense Force trying to get in. For now, we’re all there is. Good to see you, Joe.”

“Likewise,” the doctor greeted him back. Then again, the situation was entirely too grim for anyone to be happy at the moment. Then Yamato finally raised his voice, “Has there been any sign of Tamer yet?”

The female agent Riley shook her head and frowned, “No. We have a description out to all available field operatives and agents. So far, no one has reported anything yet. Then again, with how crowded the streets are, he could be right in front of them and no one would know.”

“What about you, Miss Kamiya?” Henry asked quietly. Her expression didn’t change as she looked at him, “What about me?”

“Well…I mean…you seemed closer to Tamer than any of us. If he was going anywhere, he’d go to you,” Henry pointed out sheepishly, not wanting to put her on the spot like this. However, he wasn’t wrong. If Tamer was going to bother anyone, it would be her. After all, they were close - weren’t they? She sighed, “He did come to my place last night.”

“WHAT!?” the detective, rockstar, and Ryo both blurted out at the same. They were struck across the back of the head by their wives and Rika, respectively. Miss Kamiya raised up her hands defensively, “He…well…he spoke to me and Juri last night on the train ride home. This…all of this…it’s Juri. He said something happened to Juri in the Digital World. He wasn’t sure what. He just knew that whatever came back wasn’t Juri.”

“He knew!?” Rika snapped now, “Juri’s been off since her partner died. If he knew, why the hell didn’t he say anything?”

“He wasn’t sure what it was at the time. And he was waiting to see what it was going to do. If he didn’t tell you guys, I’m sure it was just to keep you all calm. Some of you…or rather us…do fly off the handle a lot,” Miss Kamiya explained quietly, barely making anything resembling a case for either herself or The Digimon Tamer. A beat of silence followed - Rika wanted to be mad about it. But the idea that it could’ve been her or Ryo or anyone else instead of Juri was just as equally terrifying. Which raised the question - why did it go for Juri? Was it because she was emotionally unwell? Because she was vulnerable? Why did it go for her and not literally anyone else present?

But they would have to worry about that later. Now the question was how to stop that thing from destroying the world and saving Juri. Rika groaned, “Okay, so now what?”

Yamaki adjusted his clothes, “We’ve been trying to round up as many of you as we can since you’re all the resident experts in this situation. We’re also trying to coordinate between government organizations but that’s slow going. That thing is messing with our communications - it’s not affecting electronics but wireless communications are no good. Anything further that shouting distance leads to signal distortion. On top of that, conventional weapons aren’t working on it. What few reports have trickled in from the Self Defense Force indicates that gunfire, explosives, and artillery barely scratch it. The Americans were proposing high grade ordinance from their nearby naval base but-”

“They want to bomb the city?” Dolphin blurted out in disbelief, “Are they insane? That’ll do more harm than good! We need more time to evacuate the city before they try anything like that!”

They were some murmurs of agreement but Riley gestured out the window towards the Imperial Palace, “Don’t worry. They’re not allowing it yet. The Prime Minister and Emperor both said they’d consider any foreign action as an act of war. But that’s the problem. The problem is that they’re not allowing it now. Who knows about later? As soon as the city is all clear, they’ll probably start authorizing a bomb drop.”

That statement looked over the group of them like a horrifying nightmare. Was this really happening? It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be actually happening. This was insane - they were ready to destroy the city and they weren’t even sure it was going to work. The concern was accentuated by the rock star kicking over a computer and cursing, “Dammit! Tamer screwed us again!”

They were pulled from their thoughts by a bright flash of light accompanied by screams.

“AAAH!”

When the light faded, everyone found Tamer lying on the ground atop Guilmon, massaging his head as he grumbled, “Damn that stings! I swear I was a lot better at landings before the new feet. It’s gotta be the legs. They’re still too short!”

“Takatomon. Please get off me,” Guilmon whimpered from underneath him. Tamerkato scrambled to his feet and helped to pull the dinosaur up, “Sorry buddy. Didn’t mean to fall on you.”

“How are you so heavy when you’re so small?” the dinosaur whimpered. Tamerkato scratched the back of his head and laughed, then paused, “Wait, are you calling me fat?”

“TAMER! Where the hell did you go?” Ishida shouted at the top of his lungs. Tamerkato rubbed his ear, “Ow! No need to shout! I’m right here. I thought you’d be happy to see me after I brought help!”

“What are you talking about?” That cooled Ishida down for a second, which was just as well since his wife was already escorting him back down to a chair and leering at him like a dog who’d misbehaved. Tamerkato took a second to look around before asking, “I’m talking about…wait a second, where’d they all go? They were with me a second ago.”

A soft thunk from the far end of the room caught their attention, and they turned their heads towards a supply closet, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“I’m here! Who else is?” another voice asked.

“Is that who I think it is?” Joe said with his mouth hanging open.

“Fascinating. I didn’t know this was even possible. But where are we?” a new, older voice asked.

The monster makers looked at each other and one asked, “Was that Shibumi?”

“I know where we’re not. Safe.” 

“Takeru?” Matt repeated in astonished disbelief.

“Palmon! Get your vine out of my face.”

“That’s not my vine! Hey! Quit it!” Palmon cried out in protest, “Biyomon! Get your beak out of there!”

“My beak’s not touching anything!” Biyomon’s voice answered.

“That’s my horn! You get off!” Gabumon’s voice said.

“Everyone be quiet! I think I found a door!” Wormmon’s voice echoed from further inside. They heard the knob turn and a closet door swung open to reveal multiple rookie level digimon and two adult males spilling out of the closet and onto the floor. Immediately, everyone in the room jumped in surprise and security promptly surrounded the digimon with their weapons drawn. Shouts and threats flew but the many digimon weren’t exactly threatened by a bunch of weird people with guns telling them what to do.

“On the ground!”

“Don’t tell me what to do! And we’re inside so that’s a floor.”

“I said on the floor!”

“No! You said on the ground, not the floor! Don’t lie!”

“Do you really think pointing a gun at a talking…Veemon, what are you exactly? Dinosaur? Dragon?”

“I’m Veemon. What elshe would I be?”

“QUIET!”

The whole room fell quiet as a middle aged man with a mullet and a bushy beard stood up. He cracked a tired yawn and looked around at the whole room, scratching the back of his head as he stared out at the whole room in annoyance. It was Shibumi - the guy who only ever seemed to spend his time sleeping. He took one look around the room and asked one simple question, “Okay…this has been a fascinating experience but can I go back to the Digital World? It was a lot less stressful there.”

“Shibumi!” one of the Monster Makers hurried over to his side, patting his shoulder and helping to lift him his up, “It’s good to see you. Where the hell were you?”

Shibumi stared at his former fellow colleagues in silence for the longest time, staring at them with a curious fascination without uttering a word. Then he pinched the one named Dolphin on the arm until they shrieked, “AH! What the hell!?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t sure you were real. Spending a lifetime in another world that doesn’t operate by our rules makes it hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t. There were times I wasn’t sure I was dreaming or not,” he answered sheepishly. The one called Babel responded by throwing a punch at his shoulder, “What? Shibumi, never change. You’re as out there as ever.”

“What do you mean? It all made sense to me,” Palmon remarked.

“We were in a house, under a fresh water lake, surrounded by salt water fish!” Shibumi countered.

“Okay, so is anyone going to fill me in on what is going on?” Riley interrupted with a raised hand, before gesturing to everyone that had just fallen out of the closet, “Who are they? Where did they come from? Isn’t this a big security breach? And is that a talking plant?”

Palmon raised up her leafy arm and answered, “If you’re talking about me, I’m pretty sure I’m a flower…or a cactus…not really sure.”

“Do cactuses have vines?” Gabumon asked.

“All of these things are plants! Sir, shouldn’t we have them detained?” she asked the Director who’d made a habit of massaging the side of his head more often than not. That statement had Ishida jumping up to his feet, “Like hell you will!”

“Matt, is that you?” the Gabumon asked happily, jumping out of the pile of digimon to go join his partner. The moment would’ve been happy if the0 guards didn’t feel the need to train their guns on Gabumon. Still the little digimon hardly noticed as he wrapped his arms around Matt’s legs, “It’s been so long! I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too buddy,” Ishida greeted him back, barely breaking his stoic and stern demeanor in the face of what should’ve been a warm reunion, “But let’s catch up once things have calmed down. And stop pointing that gun at Takeru!” 

Takeru straightened himself out and greeted the others, “Hey guys. How are you?” 

“How are we? Takeru, you’ve been missing you idiot!” Ishida snapped at his little brother, raising his fists as if to punch the man but stopping and throwing his arms around him in a hug, “You stupid, paranoid, idiot. I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you Matt,” Takeru apologized to his older brother for whatever it was worth. Although it didn’t appear to be much since Ishida went ahead and punched him in the shoulder as soon as he let go. Takeru yelped in pain, “Ow! I thought you were worried about me. What the hell was that for?”

“That was for worrying the hell out of me you idiot,” Ishida answered, cracking his knuckles. Rika, Ryo, and Henry all exchanged surprised looks. In the books and the show, the two brothers were always shown as having a close relationship. It seemed impossible for one to ever be truly mad at the other. But here they were, throwing jabs and punches at each other like this was a normal occurence for them. In the midst of all this, Rika took note of the other digimon making their way to their partners - Biyomon to Sora, Gomamon to Doctor Kido, Gatomon to Miss Kamiya, Veemon to Motomiya, Wormmon and Hawkmon to the Ichijoujis. The remaining digimon were left to pout about the absence of their partners.

“Where’s Mimi? Why isn’t she here with the rest of you?” 

“Yeah, where’s Izzy?”

“And where’s Cody!?”

“We’ve got a lot to catch you up on. But don’t worry! They’re on their way. It’s chaos out there,” Sora Ishida explained as she picked up her pink bird partner, “It’s so good to see you guys. I missed you all. Have you been in the Digital World this whole time?”

“Yeah, we’ve been hiding. Takeru said there were some bad people after us,” Biyomon said to her former partner. Takeru finally pushed himself away from his older brother to explain, “I got tipped off by those Burnt Leaf guys we ran into. They said that Hypnos was after our digimon. So I took them to the Digital World to protect them.”

“Okay, I get that part but why didn’t you tell us? Come on, man. We’re all friends! We would’ve understood,” Motomiya said.

“I wasn’t sure who I could trust honestly,” Takeru admitted quietly, “And the one person I did trust was nowhere to be found until recently. Speaking of which, what now Tamer?”

“Hang on! You trust Tamer, more than me?” Ishida interrupted.

“Rough,” Terriermon remarked, earning him a smack from Henry.

“This has been quite the moment, but I’m not entirely sure we needed to be here,” Renamon answered calmly.

“As I was saying!” Takeru interrupted, “What now Tamer? What do we do next?”

Tamerkato raised up his finger like he was going to say something, then paused with his mouth hanging open, “I don’t know. Head’s still fuzzy from the multiple Human and Digital Worlds sitting on top of each other. I was able to think more clearly in the Digital World so I’m mostly making this up as I go. First thing’s first, we need to save Juri. We get her out of there. Then we can kill the D-Reaper.”

“D-Reaper? That’s the D-Reaper?” Shibumi repeated aloud, practically shouting. The other Monster Makers were just as equally stunned and unsettled by that revelation. Curly stood up from what she was doing to go the window, staring out in silently and eyes widened with horror at the realization of what they’d all wrought, “That’s…D-Reaper?” 

“Can someone fill me in? What’s D-Reaper?” Riley asked with a raised hand. Tamerkato gestured out the window, “D-Reaper is that thing. A monster that showed up in the Digital World forever ago - focused mostly on eating everything it could get its hands on. The Guardians couldn’t kill it so they did the next best thing and tricked it - burying it in the center of the Digital World with an equally strong enemy who just so happened to be a threat to them. Sort of a kill two birds with one stone solution. Only now that bird has come back bigger, stronger, smarter, and a lot angrier.”

“It’s also a program we made,” Curly added quietly, “It was a regulation program - meant to foster growth in the simulation by making sure no one digital life form became too dominant or powerful. A check against natural selection taking matters too far into its own hands. It was created to promote diversity of life. But we never expected it to do...this. It was the one thing we never expected to run rampant. It should’ve gone dormant whenever things leveled out.”

Dolphin scratched his head quietly, trying to make sense of that revelation, “Maybe things got too powerful in the Digital World. After all, they started bleeding into this world. The D-Reaper is going to destroy everything to prevent it from becoming rampant.”

“Or it’s attacking us. Think about it. We’re the dominant species on this planet and most other life forms don’t stand a chance against us! Climate change, resource depletion, mass extinction, pollution...all caused by mankind. Is it any wonder this is happening?” Curly said. It was a surprisingly grim thing to hear. The only reason she didn’t finish was because Babel came over to slap the back of her head, “Curly, I love ya! You is my girl. But chill! Snap back to reality for a second.”

The woman froze for a second, taking a moment to collect her thoughts before nodding, “Right, sorry.”

“Okay, so we’re all here for the first time in a long time. What’s the plan, Tamer?” Takeru asked Tamerkato who stood there with his hands in his pockets. All eyes were on him now as he started pacing and clapping his hands together, “Right! The plan! The plan I definitely have. Yes, I’ll definitely be telling you about that plan, now...yeah...”

“You don’t have a plan do you?” Gatomon accused from Miss Kamiya’s arms. Tamerkato’s shoulders slumped, “I said I was making this up as I go!”

“Great,” Ishida threw up his hands in frustration.

“Calm down, Matt,” his partner patted his arm to try and calm him down for whatever it was worth. Tamerkato quickly added, “Look, the best plan the Guardians could come up with was to bury it and hope it went away. A civilization that was so far ahead technologically that reality was their plaything couldn’t think of a way to defeat it. Sorry I don’t have a plan. I probably did. I definitely might have at some point...but I don’t remember what it is.”

The room filled with a collective groan and Tamerkato scratched the back of his head, apologizing profusely while he racked his brain to figure out what he could do.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Takeru answered calmly. Everyone in the room shot him a confused look, surprised that he could be so calm about the whole thing. With that same calm air, he explained, “Look. Destiny has always worked itself out in our favor. Remember?”

“You forget that Tamer over here was usually pushing us in the right direction. If he wasn’t, literally anything could’ve happened,” Ichijouji thumbed at the goggle headed boy. Henry finally chose to speak, “I’m not really sure destiny had anything to do with what’s going on. After all, we’ve been doing just fine on our own so far.”

...

Yamaki crossed his arms. It seemed to him that a lot of the anger in the room was horribly misplaced. After all, half of the people in the room were blaming a kid claiming to be some advanced alien race. However, it seemed obvious who the blame laid with - the Monster Makers. This thing was their creation after all. If they hadn’t done their stupid college program, they wouldn’t be in this mess. He also knew part of the blame laid with his superiors - at least, as far as he was concerned. And anyone insisting he was nursing a personal grudge was welcome to tell him that to his face. 

He stood up and called for everyone’s attention, “If we’re done groaning and expecting a child to solve our problems, we still have a serious issue in the form of that thing out there. Shibumi, you’ve been a difficult man to get a hold off so you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. And you damn well have a lot to catch up on when it comes to fixing your mess. Yes, your mess. Don’t make that face. You helped make Yggdrasil. As far as I care, this is your mess to clean up.”

“Yggdr-what?” Tamer repeated stupidly. Yamaki thumbed over his shoulder and tapped a large series of servers lining the wall beside him, “This computer setup. They called it Yggdrasil.”

“I call it Yggy for short,” Daisy added with a smile. Yamaki groaned, “Not important right now. This computer is the thing running the computer program that became the wild ones…the digimon and the digital world. It’s where that thing came from.”

He gestured out the window towards the red mass growing on the horizon outside the window. Helicopters were circling it from above - some military firing at it to no effect and others were civilian news. It was obvious from here that the situation was deteriorating rapidly and they needed to come up with a solution quickly. The ever present reminder made his growing head ache turn into a slow migraine, “If I’d have known this was going to be what came out of that machine, I would’ve unplugged it the moment we got our hands on it.”

“Don’t you dare joke about that!” Daisy roared with anger, pushing her finger against Yamaki’s chest in protest, as if she were a parent scolding her child…or perhaps a wife scolding her husband in this case, “That’s our baby! That is the most advanced life simulation ever made. Don’t even think about turning it off!”

He couldn’t help but notice Takato was currently examining the computer program carefully. He knew that concentrating face because he’d seen it so many times on Izumi’s face during the many nights he worked late to get the Juggernaut working. He was coming up with an idea. Tamerkato spun on his heels, “Got it.”

“Got what?” Ichijouji asked, “Do you have a plan?”

“The start of one,” Tamerkato said excitedly, rubbing his temples, “Yes...maybe...no...not quite...okay, headache’s not helping so I’m just gonna start shouting ideas. There’s two Digital Worlds and two Human Worlds. Two sets of overlapping realities also overlapping with each other. One of those worlds exists in this world as a computer program being run on an old computer! We could turn it off! It would destroy everything in the Artificial Digital World and the Natural Digital World would fall apart shortly after - like taking out half the puzzle pieces in a puzzle box! We can’t have that! But what if we separate them? Move all the digimon in the Digital World from the Artificial one to the Natural one. Leave the D-Reaper program running on its own in the Artificial Digital World! Turn it off!”

“You just said that would destroy the Digital World!” Gatomon repeated loudly, “Dammit, Tamer. Why does everything boil down to destroying things with you?”

“Just the Artificial Digital World,” Tamerkato clarified, “Everything else will move to the Natural Digital World.”

“What?” Gatomon raised an eyebrow, half out of confusion and half out of frustration, “What the hell are you babbling about?”

Tamerkato pointed at the computer again, “This, the computer runs an Artificial Digital World. Another one made by the humans in an alternate version of this world. One where the digidestined don’t exist and digimon is just a kids’ toy franchise - shows, books, card games, action figures.”

A beat followed before Gomamon complained, “Okay, is anyone following this? Because I have no idea what he’s talking about. And here I thought Izzy was bad with slowing down.”

Was it that confusing? It was, but Yamaki was at least able to follow it. Zhenyu’s son Henry gestured at the computer, “To catch you guys up - this world, our world…the human world mixed itself up with another human world. One where digimon was just a card game and a tv show, and another one where the stuff that happened to you guys was real. In the world where digimon was just a card game, these guys-”

He pointed at the Monster Makers, “-including my dad, started a project in college to make life forms on a computer program. That became that world’s version of the Digital World. An artificial Digital World. That artificial Digital World mixed with the Digital World you guys know - the natural one. He wants to get all the digimon out of the artificial Digital World and into the natural one, then turn off the artificial one. If that makes sense.”

“Hang on…I’m not following any of this,” one of the Monster Makers said, “What the hell? Two Digital Worlds? Two human worlds? What?”

Tamerkato sighed, “Okay…maybe we should start all this at the beginning. I’m getting really tired of explaining this.”

He grabbed a marker off one of the desks and started writing on the walls just as Yamaki groaned, “Will you people stop writing on my walls? Seriously, is everyone in this room five?”

[dragonandtiger]

Dreaming To Reality: Oneiromancy Chapter Twenty Two - 01

Yamaki’s face was neutral as he set down two cold cans on the convenience store counter, one of an obnoxiously orange drink with the picture of a green Frakenstein creature with the word ‘MUNSTER’ on it in purple text and the other a beige-colored imported beer with what appeared to be German in black letters. He was boxed in on both sides by displays of candy and various knick-knacks for sale, leaving very little room for the cash register and his actual purchase. It felt almost claustrophobic, but space was a valuable commodity in Japan, and that went for shopping too.

“Welcome~!” a teenage girl working the counter chirped, her smile bright. She had medium-length brown hair neatly parted back from her forehead and held in place with a pair of hairclips. She wore a rather plain store uniform with a dark apron over lighter clothes, and a pair of silver oval-shaped glasses framed her bright brown eyes. “Were you able to find everything you needed today~?”

Yamaki pulled out his wallet from his front pocket before removing his license to show it to the girl. “A pack of Seven Suns, please.”

 “You got it!” the girl said with a sunny customer service ready smile before turning behind the counter. By Yamaki’s assessment she could be about sixteen or seventeen, not even legally old enough to smoke the cigarettes she was ringing up for him. Her name tag indicated her name was Momoe Inoe, which he already knew from the case file was one of Miyako Inoe’s older sisters.

 Still, she didn’t know that he knew that, and it gave him the perfect opportunity to start the conversation just as intended.

“Inoe? Yamaki repeated, as if it were a surprise to him that she had such a last name. “You wouldn’t be related to Miyako Inoe, by any chance?”

Momoe started, lowering her scanner gun as she stared at Yamaki in surprise. “Um, yes? Miyako is my baby sister.” She tried to school her expression back into its customer service smile, but her eyes still wrinkled with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. “Do you know her?”

“Oh, I apologize, I was just thinking out loud,” Yamaki said. “You see, her name shows up as one of Ken Ichijouji’s friends. He’s a boy who went missing a few weeks ago, you see… and she was one of the last people to see him. He was seen somewhat recently before disappearing again.”

 Momoe couldn’t keep her schooled expression as her eyebrows shot up close to her hairline. “Ken Ichijouji? The Ken Ichijouji?”