Chapter 1: curved like a road through mountains
Chapter Text
"into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me."
—Insomnia
"I had the dream again."
Weak dawn light crept through the east window of their apartment. It chased the shadows lurking beneath the furniture and cabinetry; banished them from the portrait of Renamon commissioned for Rika's twenty-first birthday. Drawn in flowing yamato-e style, the bold yellow fur burned vibrant gold among soft pink cherry blossom petals. It maintained a place of pride above the mantle of the small apartment, right alongside Ryo's favored collection of signed Ryū Murakami books.
The warm, rich scent of brewing coffee battled the early morning chill. Rika shivered, kotatsu blanket drawn further over her knees. Ryo's words took a moment to penetrate her sleep-smothered thoughts.
"What, were you naked in front of class?"
"That sounds more like one of your dreams, babe."
Rika snorted. Ryo padded over holding a steaming cup of coffee, dressed in his construction uniform. It served a sharp contrast to her own loose sleepwear. He had already prepared for work an hour ago, having to leave much earlier than her. They were both light sleepers.
The heat from the coffee swirled upward, buffeting her face. She inhaled deeply, a caffeine tingle dancing along her arms, and took a grateful swig. As the years passed, Rika became less and less of a morning person.
"It was the ocean nightmare," Ryo said.
Rika frowned.
Everything is dark and cold, he had said several weeks back after waking her with his thrashing, I'm not sure if they're storm clouds or if it's always like that. There's a girl beside me and she won't stop crying. The dark ocean breathes in and out to the rhythm of the moon. I can't see it, but I know it's there beyond the pale somewhere watching me.
"Have you talked to Dr. Nishikawa about this yet?"
"Yeah." Ryo smiled a little ruefully. "She wants to prescribe me more Zoloft."
"More? Again? Maybe we should consider a new psychiatrist." Rika took an aggressive sip of coffee. It cleared her head and focused her protective outrage.
"That shouldn't be necessary. It's only a dream, anyway. And I turned down the dosage increase." Ryo cleared his throat. He disliked bouncing from shrink to shrink, Rika knew, but it bothered her how much they often failed to help given how much they often charged. "Don't worry, just figured it worth mentioning."
"Weird dreams make me suspicious. I can't help it."
Ryo laughed, fetching his own mug before settling beside her. "Jealous you weren't there?"
Rika decided against dignifying that with an answer. But she let the matter rest for his sake.
Ryo had a specific ritual when prepping his own coffee. He always added one teaspoon of cream, two sugar cubes, stirred three time counterclockwise, added another teaspoon of cream, stirred three more times clockwise. Simple yet methodical. Rika, meanwhile, drank hers black.
"Oh, yeah, I'll be getting home late tonight," he said. "They really want us to meet the deadline for that new Kamishiro building and are offering overtime. Think you could swing by the store and pick up groceries? Unless you want to sustain yourself on coffee and takeout."
"No problem." Rika drained her drink. "Just do me a favor and send a list of what we need."
Smiling, Ryo leaned over and kissed her cheek. His lips were warm but chapped. "Thanks. Have a good day at work. And tell the others I said hey."
Something Henry had learned over the years about e-mails was their ability to multiply exponentially. He could clear his inbox then turn off his phone, set aside his D-Power, leave his computer for a lunch break only to come back an hour later and find twenty plus e-mails cluttering said inbox once more. Inventory every morning was a monotonous chore. It was, Henry reflected, the curse of handling the managerial side of their detective agency.
Still, he was best suited for the job. Rika could help from time to time, but it was not her strength; Takato was a disaster behind a desk, harboring the ever-present potential to accidentally commit tax fraud. He excelled out in the field. And no one else had Henry's business connections.
He clicked through the messages. Spam, delete; Kamishiro Enterprises, delete; Yamaki, delete. Then Henry came across a strange yet familiar handle:
From: A
To: Henry Wong
Subject: are all digivolutions transitive?
"The object of the superior man is truth."
Henry pressed down the button of his pen. Click, click, click. If a equaled rookie and c equaled mega, surely that would explain biomerging, but—
His D-Power beeped. He looked over at it, frowning slightly.
T-dawg: Borrow money from a pessimist. They don't expect it back.
Henry rolled his eyes. He never thought he would miss "moumentai" and yet here they were. Swiveling in his chair, Henry typed a response. Another loud beep rang out.
Henry: Did you manage to get the recording?
When he glanced at his laptop's screen, the e-mail glowered back. Henry's frown deepened. This was not the first time this happened. But what could it mean? Nothing good, that was for certain.
T-dawg: Of course! Who the hell do you think I am?!
Henry: You really need to cut down on the anime.
Terriermon sent him a video file. Henry refused to click on it; he had been rickrolled one time too many to fall for that trick again.
The door to their office space opened with a warning jingle. Rika breezed in, shucking off her coat and adjusting her sunglasses, hair windswept and burnished even constrained in its conservative bun.
"You're here early," she said, hanging her apparel on the coat rack. She wore a dark blue blazer and pinstripe skirt.
Wan morning sunlight illuminated the room. Henry loved their small, spartan office space. It was minimalist perfection—not to mention a bargain lease given its location on Nakano Broadway.
The office had two rooms, the first a foyer for meeting with clients. The furniture and decorations were warm tones of black and brown, with the occasional red, blue, green accent. The second room was a conference room shared between Takato, Rika, Henry. A coffee machine, tea kettle, and microwave occupied a kitchenette tucked away in the back, alongside stationery and memorabilia from their families and friends.
Next to the fax machine hummed a curious yellow, spherical computer. Henry's greatest accomplishment: the access point. He had promised himself and the others he would find a way to reunite them with their digimon, and he had succeeded. The access point took consciousness and projected it into avatars capable of inhabiting the Digital World, while their physical bodies remained in the Real World. It was the ultimate compromise.
Henry leaned back in the chair, leaving aside his melancholy with a sigh.
"Just wanted to get a head start on the day. I'll probably resolve that cheating investigation soon. Terriermon found tapes."
Rika uttered a disgusted noise. "Honestly, if you're suspicious enough to hire a private investigator for your spouse, isn't your marriage already screwed?"
She sat opposite Henry, pulling out her own laptop.
"Should look into counseling at the very least, yeah." Unlikely, given Japanese attitude toward such practices, and they both knew it. Henry answered the question the mysterious A had sent him: Yes. Hit reply. The e-mail folded up and flew away, off along invisible packets of data across the world wide web to an unknown location. Rika muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like 'So stupid.' "Did you hear EDEN might open to the public soon?"
Rika stilled.
"A few rumors." She sounded cautious. "What're you thinking?"
"Nothing." Technically true. Henry changed the subject. "I'll be visiting Terriermon and Guilmon once Takato arrives. A new client contacted me last night, implied it was fairly urgent. Could you handle it?"
"Sure. Forward me the e-mail."
They both went quiet after that. The tapping of fingers on keyboards filled the silence. Henry paused to brew a pot of tea, the bright scent swift to fill the air. His stomach growled, but Takato was running late. Food should arrive soon.
Shadows shrank further and further while the sun rose higher and higher in the sky. What was that The Sun Also Rises quote? What rot. What rot, indeed. American college had been a mistake; western nihilism did not mix well with Henry's natural tendency toward fatalism.
An hour later, the front door banged open and Takato careened in.
"Sorry I'm late!" He slammed a tinfoil-wrapped basket on the table. Henry and Rika sipped their tea and exchanged knowing glances. "I come bearing gifts!"
"About time." Rika leaned forward, tugging at the foil. Takato slapped her hand away with a grin.
"Seriously? You two need to learn to feed yourselves." He combed his wild mane of hair out of his face. Of the three, Takato had changed the most over the years. He no longer wore goggles and sported an equally unruly beard, somewhat unsettling in its resemblance to the late Shibumi. "By the way, Henry, Jeri wanted me to thank you. She really enjoyed that tai chi lesson."
Henry blinked. He had enjoyed himself, too, which Henry never would have expected when Takato first suggested it. Henry was not as close to Jeri as the others, but going through the beginner's module with her had been pleasant. Sometimes it helped to recall the basic fundamentals.
"Glad to hear it. Has she been practicing five minutes every day?"
"Yup."
"Well, she's welcome to stop by again whenever."
Takato grinned and withdrew two loaves of sweet-smelling bread, accompanied by a softly uttered 'tada!' Henry's mouth watered as he gulped in unison with Rika.
"Jeri and my dad came up with this great new flavor combo. It's bean paste mixed with cinnamon and raisins. It tastes awesome. I can't wait to share some with Guilmon! What do you guys think?" Takato asked, handing them their breakfast.
Henry chewed at a restrained pace, deliberate and focused. The soft, warm rye flaked in his mouth, gooey paste center exploding on his tongue when he bit down. A loud grumble rumbled from his stomach, eliciting snickers from both Takato and Rika. Ignoring them, Henry swallowed with great dignity.
"It's fantastic."
Rika nodded her agreement, still smirking.
Takato beamed.
"You're done?"
"Yeah!"
"But there's still bread left…"
Guilmon tilted his head. He placed a talon on the lip of his muzzle. "Yeah?"
"Did you not like it?" Takato asked.
They were sitting in Henry's DigiLab. Henry had described EDEN before as a metaverse, a proxy server between the Real World and the Digital World. While Takato sort of understood the general gist, the whole idea just felt too large for him to truly get. But if it meant he could see Guilmon again, he cared little either way.
"I loved it!" Guilmon responded with a toothy grin and emphatic head bob. "I'm just full."
"Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense," Takato said, lying through his teeth.
They were not supposed to even get hungry here, so how could they get full? Hell, the bread was not real, none of this was real, it was all data reconstituted from his mind. Mental framework, according to Henry. None of it was real.
Guilmon had changed in the years spent apart. He was quieter, now. More mature. Takato struggled with how to feel about it, how to process that his child had grown up without him. It felt akin to grasping sand in a broken hourglass or trying to fit warped pieces into an old puzzle.
"If Guilmon won't finish, I will," Terriermon chirped from the other side of the lab.
"Sure." Takato frowned. "Oh, wait, actually—I'm meeting with Beelzemon. Save some for him."
Guilmon cocked his head again.
"Aw, What? Bullshit," Terriermon complained. Takato started.
"Language."
Henry had not even looked away from the touchscreen he was scrolling through. The whole lab was stark white, lit by bright colored holograms filled with programs personally designed by Henry. A looming pillar of monitors stood in the center, drooping over each other at the stem like a bone-bleached bouquet of begonias.
Terriermon huffed but hopped over to Takato without further complaint, swiping a loaf of bread in sulky silence.
Renamon was quiet too, leaning against the far wall, eyes fixed on Henry's back. That she had shown up without Rika around was somewhat a surprise. Then again, Takato always struggled to connect with the indomitable kitsune. She remained an enigma, someone he could not comprehend.
"Well, we should hurry and mosey on over. C'mon, boy." Takato felt hot and itchy. He fiddled with the collar of his suit and wished, not for the first time, that he could wear casual clothes. Henry had insisted on professionalism from all three of them, though. They were a business now, apparently, not just a group of rag tag kids marauding (Henry's word, not Takato's) through Shinjuku Park. It was a minor miracle he let Takato keep the beard.
Henry waved absentmindedly in acquiescence, still hyper-focused on the screen. Guilmon heeled to Takato's side.
Takato approached the access pad and typed in the URL Beelzemon had sent him. A brief magenta glow lit him from the inside out as the data stream triggered. He vanished alongside Guilmon in a blink, reappearing somewhere else a blink later. They had landed on the newest layer of the Digital World.
Everything spun. The cracked badlands tilted on their axis, while the hovering, moon-like Earth and EDEN flipped upside down. Woozy, Takato staggered back, only for Guilmon to bolster him. It helped Takato stabilize and recover his bearings.
"Thanks." Takato scratched the back of his head, sheepish.
"No problem!" Guilmon butted his forehead lightly against Takato's knee. "Why are we visiting Beelzemon? Is it for the same reason as last time?"
Takato was thankful for Guilmon's maturation. He would not have wanted to answer these questions around Henry and Renamon.
"Yeah."
Guilmon said nothing else.
The beating of wings distracted them both. A dark feather fluttered onto the bridge of Guilmon's nose; Guilmon sneezed. Beelzemon landed several feet away, kicking up a storm of sand and dust in the process.
"Ladies." He strode forward. A familiar white digimon popped his head over Beelzemon's shoulder, waving happily at Guilmon. Guilmon happily waved back.
"Ha ha, very funny. I brought you some food, by the way. You're welcome," Takato said, not particularly offended. Beelzemon clapped him on the shoulder with a large, heavy claw.
"Whadda I look like, a charity case?" Beelzemon turned away, extending a hand behind him. Grinning, Takato passed over the first loaf. Beelzemon took a careless munch and spoke with his mouth full: "Anyway, I checked out that abandoned village, but it was another dead end."
He swallowed and stuck out his hand again. Takato gave him another loaf.
"This is boring." Calumon hopped off Beelzmon, floating onto Guilmon's back and stealing some bread in the process. "Wanna play?"
Guilmon sent Takato a questioning look.
"Stay where I can see you."
"Okay!" Guilmon took off to chase Calumon around a rock pillar.
Beelzemon, meanwhile, finished his second loaf of bread, moving onto a third with an impatient hand gesture. Takato relinquished the gift. He was down to his last loaf.
"No rumors either?" Takato asked.
Calumon tried eating his bread and running at the same time. This proved to be a mistake, for he choked on it, forcing Guilmon to pump his abdomen.
"Nope. Nada. Zilch."
Calumon spat out the bread. It flew in a high arc before landing a foot or so away. Calumon crumpled to the ground while Guilmon hovered over the small white digimon, sniffing his body worriedly.
"I don't get it," Takato said. "How could a digimon as big and strong and scary as Cyberdramon just vanish into thin air?"
Calumon leapt to his feet, ears exploding to their full length. Guilmon tripped over his feet and fell on his tail. They started giggling. Weirdos, both of them. But their childish antics brightened Takato's mood.
"Might not wanna be found," Beelzemon commented. "Doesn't help this place has gotten damn huge. Seems to double, triple in size every year. 'Sides, who knows if he's even Cyberdramon anymore, given the chaos of the Reset."
The Reset brought everything in the Digital World back to its most basic form. From what Takato knew, the recovery process after the D-Reaper's destruction and the repercussions of the Reset had been enormously difficult and stressful to experience. Not for the first time, immense guilt pierced him, swiftly eradicating his brief cheeriness.
"That's why I don't get why Ryo just gave up!" Takato blurted out, frustrated. "He could be Monodramon right now, lost and alone and scared somewhere…"
"Be easier with his Tamer helpin', that's for sure. Y'know, could always ask Renamon. She'd bring it up to Rika."
"No, I—Rika's on Ryo's side. I don't want to bother them over this, they have a good reason. I just… don't get it."
When Takato had mentioned it to Rika, once, she told him to leave the matter alone. And he had—with them anyway—because he had never really understood Ryo, either. But even then, Cyberdramon deserved to be found, not left behind. There was more to him than being Ryo's partner, same as any other digimon.
Takato stuck his hands in his pockets, sighing. The thought anyone might not want to be with their digital partner boggled his mind, especially given Jeri could never be with Leomon again. It was incomprehensible. Why would anyone stop searching for their best friend and closest companion?
But maybe once he saved Cyberdramon, whatever had broken between them could be fixed. Takato let himself imagine it: the two running toward each other on a beach into each other's arms, laughing and reunited and joyful, triumphant orchestral music soaring in the background. Just like when Takato met Guilmon again after so many years apart. Well, minus the music part.
As if sensing his thoughts, Guilmon trotted beside him, nuzzling his hand. Takato scratched him behind the ears with a tender smile, the soft yet pebbled texture of the scales there pleasant beneath the fingertips. Guilmon hummed deep in his chest, almost vibrating with pleasure.
"So, uh… how's Jeri?" Beelzemon's question shook Takato out of his musings.
"Oh. She's doing okay." Takato ran a hand through his hair. A familiar surge of anxiety churned his stomach into knots. "Offering her a job at the bakery has really been helping, though. She loves her dad but I don't think working for him was... good for her. And she said she likes learning tai chi from Henry."
The nightmares had been worsening lately, though. It made Takato feel so helpless.
"Good." Beelzemon sounded gruff.
Takato stared up at the sky. Earth twinkled like a diamond in the bright blue expanse. And beside it, EDEN; a blob of white octagons seemingly larger every time Takato laid eyes on them. A proxy server, Henry had said. So why did it feel like so much more than that? An enormous entity capable of blotting out the moon.
Sometimes Henry scared Takato. Takato had created his own digimon. Henry had created his own world.
Fumiko Hada squirmed in her seat across from Rika. She was a famous idol, although Rika made it a point to avoid most Japanese entertainment out of principle. (And perhaps a healthy dose of residual spite.) Rika set down some tea for the girl and her manager, a quiet older man known as Haru Ogawa. His dark hair was flecked with silver and he had severe eyes.
Well, this was unexpected. Just the fact they had accepted and scheduled an appointment so quickly took Rika by surprise. Henry mentioned it was urgent and he had not exaggerated.
"You'll be discrete?" Hada asked.
She looked so young, fiddling with a jet-black strand of tightly curled hair.
Rika had been a teenager once, too. Those days were strange to recall. How did five years feel short and long at once? Surely, she had never looked that young though. Hada's clothes were bright and feminine and expensive. Rika could recognize silk blindfolded after growing up in the Nonaka household.
"Of course. Here at Cyber Sleuth Agency, we practice strict confidentiality with our clients."
Hada looked relieved.
"This is a delicate situation. It requires subtlety. A deft touch," Ogawa said, voice deep and grave.
"I understand," Rika reassured them, trying not to sound annoyed. She could not escape the nagging sense Ogawa infantilized her. "Although I'll need a little more information to go on."
They had been evasive for the past half hour. It proved rather tiresome, even by Japanese standards. Rika's social skills had improved leaps and bounds over the years, but still she harbored limits. Hada and Ogawa exchanged covert glances. Rika stifled an eye roll.
"The blackmail is pictures of Miss Hada in rather… uncompromising positions," Ogawa explained, reluctantly. Hada reddened, staring at her fingernails.
"Ah. I see." Sympathy softened Rika's stance. "How did they deliver the messages and images? Phone? E-mail?"
"I fail to see how that is relevant."
Rika's brow twitched. She put on a fake smile and spoke sweetly: "They likely hacked her cloud data, which leaves a footprint"—in the Digital World, anyway—"for us to trace."
"I'm not sure you understand the severity of this situation, Miss Nonaka." Ogawa scowled. "Just seeking out freelancers could embarrass the company. And that's setting aside the images themselves. If even a hint of their existence leaks, it will ruin Miss Hada's career."
They were talking circles around each other again. Rika's façade cracked. "Mr. Ogawa, we are investigators who specialize in cyber crimes, not magicians. I understand your concerns and will do everything in my power to protect Miss Hada's interests, but you must co-operate to make actual, legitimate headway on the case."
Ogawa stood, towering over them both. Rika met his gaze evenly. Hada bit her lip and, after a moment of hesitation, tugged on the sleeve of Ogawa's suit. He glanced at her, then back at Rika.
"Very well. I'll wait outside while Miss Hada shares more details with you."
He stiffly walked out. Rika wiped her sweaty palms on the fringes of her skirt.
"Sorry," Hada said, still worrying at her lower lip.
"It's fine." The fake smile returned with a vengeance. Rika's voice rose an octave, a trick she found often set people more at ease. "What else can you tell me?"
"Oh… well… the pictures were on my p-phone, and he texted me too. I think I know who it is, though."
Rika blinked before gesturing for Hada to continue. The girl blushed.
"A couple weeks ago, after a show, I was out late with one of the other idols in our group. T-there were two fans there who tried to grab us, but we got away. No one should've known what hotel we were at, so I think they… might've known something?"
Or they were stalkers. But Rika instead nodded and refrained from commenting on it. "Did you tell anyone about this? Were the police involved?"
Hada shook her head.
"Why not?" Rika asked, more sharply than intended. Hada flinched.
"B-because it was our fault. We stayed out past our curfew…" she said in a small voice.
Rika stared. Then she took a deep breath, a mental Renamon urging compassion in the back of her mind. Mostly Rika just wanted to find and beat Ogawa's ass, though. "Did you happen to get names? Or see what they looked like?"
"Um, they were heavyset. Glasses. Dark hair… it was kind of dark out."
Rika nodded, scribbling notes down. "May I keep your cell overnight?"
Hada hesitated, grip on the smartphone tightening. Slowly, she stretched out her hand, relinquishing it onto Rika's desk. It was the latest model iPhone, a flashy thing. Henry would no doubt launch into a diatribe about Apple products when he saw it. A diatribe almost as riveting to hear about as differences between symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption.
"Thank you. I'll see you out."
Rika escorted Hada off the premise into the waiting arms of her manager. Ogawa nodded curtly before guiding the girl away, hand resting on the small of her back. Rika bowed her head until the elevator dinged shut.
Tension drained out of Rika's frame. She sighed, closing her eyes, arm braced against the elevator frame. One of the many things she hated about modeling was putting on a false front. But there seemingly was no occupation where that was not necessary. Just exhausting.
Rika returned to the conference room, Hada's cell phone in tow. Takato and Henry's bodies were still huddled around the access point, staring vacantly at the glowing screen. Creepy. And, ew, Takato was drooling again. She hated to think about what she looked like while using that machine.
Rika sat down, attaching the iPhone to her D-Power. Renamon had left a message already.
Renamon: I'm worried about Henry.
Rika: Worry about his perennial quarter-life crisis later. Can you track the location of whoever hacked these nudes?
Renamon: Of course.
The iPhone glowed then unlocked itself. Rika absently flicked through the pictures, driven by morbid curiosity. She crinkled her nose. These were incredibly vanilla. She had sent more risqué photos to Ryo when they first started dating, for heaven's sake.
Speaking of Ryo, she still had yet to receive the grocery list from him, so she e-mailed him a reminder. He was probably on his lunch break by now. A response should arrive soon.
While waiting for both Ryo and Renamon, Rika spent time testing their password security, a habit impressed upon her by Henry's deep-seated paranoia. It was hard to blame him, though, given just how much data online was controlled by various corporations. One of the first things Henry had done was install a private browser on their laptops and require the use of encrypted search engines.
Ryo did eventually reply with a love you too, pumpkin :) and an attached list that made Kanpō notices look like footnotes. He had a strange obsession with making lists as obscenely long as possible. He even double-spaced it, the absolute madman. Rika suddenly wondered if it was a guy thing. There had to be a penis metaphor in there somewhere.
Staring at the monthly itinerary Henry kept pinned to the opposite wall, Rika then spent half an hour scouring the web for proof excessive hair gel usage was linked to permanent brain damage. In the end, she determined her research inconclusive. But the indisputable fact remained that guys were dumb.
Rika paused, loosening the cuffs of her suit and unbuttoning her blazer. The temperature had warmed in the small, cramped office. Walking over to Takato's prone form, she wiped away drool beading under his fuzzy lower lip. Rika patted Takato fondly on the back, plucked a piece of bread from his pack, and returned to her laptop. Several stacks of paperwork lay in stacks, untouched and endless—imbued with a peculiar aeonian property universal to all busy work—but starting seemed immensely unappealing. Instead, Rika played solitaire for an hour. She even beat her high score.
His client's husband really had not wanted anyone to see these videos. The encryptions were surprisingly tricky. Ultimately, however, it proved more tedious than challenging. Henry leaned back in his seat, whistling sweet victory as the video played for him. Bodies and leather gyrated across the holographic screen. Oh, huh. So that was why.
"Kinky," Terriermon said, hanging on his shoulder. Henry swatted him off.
"You're too young for this smut. Shut your virgin eyes." He attached the video as a file and sent his client an e-mail expressing condolences alongside an invoice.
Henry never quite knew how to politely handle uncovering an affair. Which was unfortunate, considering affairs made up the bulk of their work. Often he—as well as Takato and Rika—took their client out to dinner after resolving a case, but with affairs it felt a lot messier. More tone deaf. Maybe it would become easier with practice, since they had only been doing this for a year. It was somewhat alarming, how the life of a private investigator had already dulled him to fetish and infidelity. Sex now seemed little more than motions of flesh upon a silver screen, devoid of intimacy.
"We need to talk," Renamon said, jarring Henry out of his thoughts and cutting off Terriermon's quip.
"I think that qualifies as rude." Terriermon puffed out his cheeks.
"A little, sure." Henry swiveled to face Renamon. "What's wrong?"
"I saw something." She vanished, reappearing behind Henry. He always hated when she did that.
Renamon leaned over his shoulder, spreading her paw across the holoscreen. The image rippled, shifted; the Digital World swam into view. It was night, and Henry's eyes required a moment to adjust.
There were figures swaying around a data stream beaming information up to EDEN. Grotesque creatures shaped vaguely like squids—no, not squids, but some form of mollusk, certainly. Black and white patterns spiraled out into a shell shape as the creatures' tentacles writhed. Their movements were unnatural: too sinuous, too smooth. The very air around them trembled and glitched while they slithered through the moments between spaces.
"What are those?" Henry asked, a tremor entering his voice. Terriermon hopped onto his head, ears draping comfortingly over his shoulders. Henry had missed such gestures in the years they spent separated. It helped soothe his fears, helped calm his anxious heart.
"No one knows. They only recently began appearing and have little interest in digimon."
"So, what's the problem?"
"They hunt digignomes. They also seem linked to EDEN."
Henry took a deep breath. He had been young and desperate and in dire need of funds. Would one deal with a devil haunt him for the rest of his life? No, no. No. He was overreacting, leaping to conclusions. They needed more information. Henry bit his knuckles, hard.
Stand still you ever moving spheres of heaven, that time may cease and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make perpetual day.
"It's probably nothing. But can you monitor them for me?"
Both Terriermon and Renamon nodded. Renamon lifted her head.
"Rika needs me. But remember, the D-Reaper began as a simple cleaning program, Henry. This has the potential to evolve far beyond your control."
It already had. Henry suppressed a bitter laugh. Renamon disappeared from view.
"Henry…"
"Good time for a moumentai, don't you think?" Henry pulled Terriermon off his head, settling the rabbit digimon on his lap.
He had only wanted to see his digimon again. All his short life, Henry had thrown himself into the promise he made Takato and Rika when they were children. Everything else was set aside. And he succeeded. Why did that deserve divine punishment? How unfair.
What rot, indeed. Maybe Henry would have been better off as a bullfighter.
"Oh, how the turns have tabled." Terriermon's smile failed to reach his eyes. Sometimes when Henry spoke with Terriermon, he felt he spoke to a stranger.
Takato took the others out drinking after work.
Rika had not arrived yet, muttering about shopping, slipping off to the Nakano underground market. Takato sipped his saké, listening with wide-eyed concern while Henry filled him in on what he had witnessed.
"Well, at least Guilmon and the other digimon are safe," Takato said. "Do we know how they react around humans?"
"Not eager to find out, I have to admit." Dark bags lined Henry's eyes.
Golden globes of light dangled over their heads. Salesmen moved about the bar, chatting and socializing together. It was small and cramped, easy to brush skin with strangers. The murmur created a low din that thudded rhythmically behind the base of Takato's skull.
"Hey. It might not have anything to do with you, you know…"
"Maybe." Henry looked unconvinced.
"You two clearly aren't drunk enough." Rika thumped down on the seat beside Takato. She raised two fingers, signaling the server for food.
"Did you and Guilmon switch stomachs?" Takato asked, grinning. Rika elbowed him in the side. "Ow."
"Sorry," she said, sounding decidedly unapologetic, "anyway, Renamon contacted me on the way here."
Takato and Henry perked. Rika had mentioned her case in passing when they returned to their physical bodies. It sounded horrible to Takato. He hoped that poor Fumiko Hada girl would be okay. No one deserved to have their privacy violated, ever.
"Yeah. It's kinda weird. Apparently, whoever hacked my client did it from a 4G hotspot. And that hotspot's location? Jackpot Entertainment."
She looked at them expectantly. Takato and Henry stared back blankly. Rika rolled her eyes.
"The talent agency that secured Fumiko Hada a role on her current idol group."
"Ohhhh," they said in unison.
The server came by, handing Rika wine and ramen. She nodded her thanks, bright purple eyes fixed on her coworkers.
"Right. So, I might swing by there tomorrow and poke around."
"Y'know"—Takato stole some of Rika's ramen, slurping up the noodles—"maybe you should ask your mom if she knows anything."
"My mom's a model, it's totally different. Gogglehead." Rika jerked her bowl away from Takato and spilled broth over the counter in the process. Several salesmen stared at them.
Takato wiped at his mouth, frowning indignantly. He had not worn goggles in years, but the insult always seemed to be Rika's default. According to her, goggleheads were a permanent state of existence, which he found deeply unfair. Questionable fashion choices made when he was ten should not define him for the rest of his life.
"Wait, Takato's got a point." Henry began cleaning the spill with a napkin, unperturbed. "She might have connections you could use, even tangentially."
Rika made a face.
"Ha!" Takato said, victorious.
"Whatever. Broken clocks are right twice a day."
"Hey!"
Both Takato and Rika laughed. This was one of his favorite parts of his new job. Work at the bakery had been nice, familiar and steady, but helping people alongside Rika and Henry and their digimon just felt right. It was the natural evolution of everything they had accomplished together when young.
"If you asked me what I'd be doing when I was little, I would never have guessed this." Henry must have been running along a parallel train of thought. "I always wanted to grow up to be like my dad."
"Same," Takato said.
Rika sipped her wine.
"I still can't believe I was studying law just a few years back," she said eventually. "Ugh, what was wrong with me?"
"Hey, a law school dropout could be useful down the line, you never know. You can go all, objection! on people." Takato pointed a finger at the ceiling.
Rika scoffed. Then she turned contemplative. "We'll have been doing this for a year, pretty soon. It never would've happened without you, Takato."
"Eh?"
"You're the one who came up with the idea. Brought us together."
"Same as when we were kids. You're the glue of the group." Henry grinned.
"Oh. Aw, well, shucks…" Cheeks heating up, Takato buried his face in his drink. He was not smart like Henry nor ambitious like Rika, so it felt nice to be appreciated. "It was nothing, really."
If only Guilmon and the others could be there with them. Their jobs would be impossible without the help of the digimon. Or less efficient, at least. Maybe someday. Henry had mentioned the possibility of creating bodies for the digimon to project their consciousness into. Reverse engineer the access points, essentially. Someday.
"Three cheers to goggleheads. They might be dense as hell, but we all need at least one of 'em in our lives." Rika was grinning too, now.
They drank together.
After the D-Reaper event, everyone had drifted apart. Takato thought that might be the end of a beautiful yet terrible dream. But now they were here, forging ahead on a new adventure together.
He took in the scene. The shimmering lights, the warm mirth of his fellow Tamers and lifelong friends, the gentle crush of humanity surrounding them. It wrapped around him like a comforting blanket, better than any daydream ever experienced. Takato hoped moments like these would last forever. And someday, they could share it with everyone. Jeri and Ryo and Kazu and Kenta and even Suzie and the twins.
Someday.
Chapter 2: tell what ought to be the truth
Chapter Text
Wind chimes dripped from the branches of the willow trees. Twisted, gnarled bark groaned under their weight. One note rang out, clear and pure. Another followed. Another.
Guilmon flitted between the trees. His claws danced along bronze metal; a chorus cascaded in his wake. Where he stepped, flowers of light bloomed from the shadows. They became digignomes, circling around him like planets orbiting a dwarf star.
Their own chirps mingled with the wind chimes. The chorus became a cacophony.
Suddenly Guilmon stopped. His pupils dilated and he bared his fangs. A growl rippled from deep in his chest, low, crescendoing louder and louder until it drowned out all other sounds of music. The major shifted to a minor key.
Then he whipped around, plucking a digignome out of the air. It squealed, arching and wriggling uselessly in his gaping maw. Guilmon's jaw distended; he swallowed it whole.
Cyberdramon stood frozen before them. A face burst out of his chest: Jeri's face, twisted by the D-Reaper, leering at the horizon. Their fangs bared in unison:
"There lies a thief at the gates, oh bringer of dreams, and they watch by night."
wake up guilmon
Wake Up Guilmon
WAKE UP GUILMON
Takato sat bolt upright, banging his head against something fleshy and firm.
"Ow! What the—oh my god, Jeri, are you okay?!"
She staggered back, clutching her nose, blood dribbling down her face.
"I'b fibe." Jeri waved him off when Takato tried to crowd her. She walked out of the room, and he could hear the sink turn on in the bathroom just down the hall.
Takato's heart hammered in his chest as he slowly sat back down on their bed. Concern for Jeri and terror from the nightmare left him frozen and indecisive. What the hell was that? He had not dreamed anything so vivid in years.
He grabbed fistfuls of the covers. Clench, unclench. Clench, unclench. The thick cotton bunched between his fingers, a solid anchor to reality. Jeri returned to the room, pinching the bridge of her nose. A hint of bruising already showed around her eyes.
"Oh god," Takato said, "I should turn myself in."
"Don't be so dramatic." Jeri tilted her head back, letting her hands drop to her side. After a moment, she must have judged the bleeding stopped, because she straightened and giggled at him. "You're supposed to be the one who wakes me up from a bad dream, not the other way around."
"Safer that way, too."
Jeri approached him, kneeling between his legs. She kissed Takato lightly on the mouth. Once, twice. He sighed and rested his forehead on her shoulder.
"You were crying. What happened?" Jeri asked.
"I dunno. Guilmon was there and… Cyberdramon." Details were already slipping away. But the underlying dread remained, lingering like a bad taste in the back of his throat.
Jeri ran her fingers along the side of his cheek before giggling again. "Your beard is all scratchy."
"It's growing on you?" Takato perked somewhat.
"A little." She absentmindedly nuzzled him. "You really want to keep it?"
"I look like a big baby clean-shaven," Takato complained. He wished he could have inherited his father's longer, narrower chin.
"I like your baby face." Jeri pouted, pulling away.
She moved to the center of the room, spreading out her legs. Takato joined her after a brief pause. Jeri closed her eyes, face open and relaxed. He tried copying her movements, but the way she angled her back foot kept throwing him off balance. Inhale, exhale. He matched the rhythm of her breathing; calmed his wild, racing imagination. Inhale, exhale.
Takato's D-Power beeped from the dresser.
Startled, he almost fell over before catching himself. Jeri had opened her eyes again, watching him curiously. Takato flashed her an awkward smile before walking toward his D-Power.
Guilmon: I think I know where Cyberdramon is!
Oh, great. Knowing his luck, it was related to the dream. Suddenly worried for Guilmon's safety, Takato pulled open the dresser.
"Takato!" yelled his mom from downstairs. "You forgot to take out the trash last night!"
Damn.
"I'll handle it," Jeri said. He glanced over, surprised. "Really. It's fine."
"Thanks, Jeri." Takato was already tugging on a pair of pants. "Dunno what I'd do without you."
She smiled wryly. "Me neither."
Rika watched her mother sashay over from the coffee stand. Several passersby checked Rumiko out, some less discrete than others. Even fifteen years later, she maintained much of her youthful beauty. More refined, as one magazine had put it. (Of course, this set Rumiko off, and Rika had been forced to listen to her rant over the phone for an hour straight.)
Rumiko sat down, smiling, presented Rika a cup of black coffee.
"I've recently started getting into their military lattes. I was never much of a matcha fan, but add a shot of white chocolate… also that art." Rumiko opened the lid, tipping it toward her daughter. The delicate foam leaf quivered gently atop dark green liquid. Sipping her drink, Rumiko sighed with satisfaction. "Oh my."
Rika grunted, noncommittal.
The day was bright and early, and she was grumpy. How Rumiko managed to be so chipper at all hours remained an eternal mystery to Rika. Further proof they could not be more different despite sharing the same blood.
Morning commuters streamed through morning traffic. Billboards flashed advertisements from buildings and buses. Several birds circled lazily overhead.
Rumiko chattered about mundane issues. Rika half-listened, psyching herself to pop the question. When Rumiko mentioned Ryo's name, however, Rika was successfully distracted.
"Huh?"
"I saw him working on that new building in Shibuya with his little crew yesterday. He's such a nice boy. And so handsome"—instant jealousy struck, immediately squashed—"in his cute tobi uniform. Are the two of you planning to marry soon?"
"Um..."
"I'm proud of you for waiting. You're already much more sensible than I was at your age. But I want grandchildren, Rika." Rumiko pouted. "I want to spoil them like Mom spoiled you growing up."
"I wasn't sp—" Rika shut her mouth with an audible click. Because fine, yes, she had been a little spoiled, a truth she only realized after befriending Takato and Henry. But how was that her fault?
Rumiko tilted her head. "Hmm?"
Rika was saved from answering by the bright jingle of Rumiko's cell phone.
"One moment, sweetie."
Rumiko stood up and moved away, answering the call. Low murmurs devolved into a soft spoken, heated argument. Some things never changed.
A little girl who could not have been older than six walked past the coffee stand. Her black hair was plaited in tight pigtails, her school backpack hoisted on her shoulders. Rika watched the girl maneuver expertly through the crowd, then wait patiently alone in line at the bus stop.
Rika finished her coffee.
"Sorry about that." Rumiko sat back down. "I can't stay long, though. What did you want to talk about? You almost never call."
The reproach was clear. Rika frowned. She thought about pointing out that just getting in touch with Rumiko was often an exercise in immense frustration, but decided instead to let sleeping dogs lie.
"Do you know anyone in the idol industry? Even better if they have some relation to Jackpot Entertainment or the group TKC96."
Rumiko blinked. "Well, I, the idol—but why? You don't want to become an idol, do you?"
There was a slight edge to her question.
"What? No. It's for a job."
Sometimes the twists Rumiko's mind took still baffled Rika.
Rumiko laughed. "Oh, I see. You'd probably be too old, anyway. That ship has long since sailed."
"Okay. Now that we've established I can't do the thing I didn't want to do in the first place…" The urge to roll her eyes was overwhelming.
But Rumiko just sighed dramatically, setting aside her drink and burying her head in her hands. She said, "It's hard getting old. You and Mom'll probably have to lock me away soon."
Rika patted her mother on the back, indulging in that eye roll. After a moment, Rumiko's head popped up, expression bright and tears miraculously dried.
"I think I know someone who can help. He doesn't work with talent agencies anymore, but he still has a ton of contacts."
"Really? That's great," Rika said, relieved. This had not been a waste of time after all. But no way would she tell Takato he made a good call.
"Whatever you're doing, it, it isn't… dangerous, is it?" Rumiko asked. Rika hesitated.
"It shouldn't be."
Rumiko frowned, picking at the lip of her coffee cup. The cardboard unfurled beneath her blood red acrylic nails. Whorls of glitter shimmered in the morning sunlight.
"Well then, I should probably get going. I have a shoot in Kyoto to prepare for. I'll call Daiki. Be safe, Rika. And don't be a stranger—I miss you when you're gone long."
It always disarmed Rika whenever her mother flipped the switch from absurd ditziness to genuine sincerity. She scrambled to think of an appropriate response, but Rumiko was already walking away. Rika was left behind, alone again.
Maybe if Henry stared hard enough at the check engine light, it would disappear.
I think, therefore I am.
But alas, the universe refused to change. The check engine light continued on with its merry existence. Henry groaned. The concrete jungle of the parking structure seemed to close in on him.
The car had been one of a few vanity purchases Henry allowed himself to make. He enjoyed being able to commute to work alone; he valued privacy for his own thoughts. Although the decision seemed a touch regrettable whenever situations like this current one arose. Or whenever he had to pay a road toll.
A light tap distracted him from his current conundrum. Henry turned his head to find Suzie's face smooshed up against the passenger window. When they made eye contact, she pulled away, leaving a smear on the glass. He groaned again.
Rolling down the window, Henry frowned at her. "What."
"I heard you still haven't hired a receptionist."
"No."
Henry started rolling up the window again. Suzie immediately stuck her hands inside the vehicle. The window stopped, then started, then stopped again, slowly inching upward while Henry threw the full force of his mildly disapproving frown at her.
"Do it no balls," Suzie said.
Brat.
Henry sighed, folding his hands in his lap and pressing his forehead against the steering wheel. "I have to take my car into Kazu's. Can we please not do this right now?"
Suzie's cheeks puffed out. She pursed her lips, releasing the trapped air like a pricked balloon. Henry looked away, fighting back a smile.
"Fine." She stepped back, shading a hand over her eyes. "But you can't dodge this forever. That desk has my name tag on it."
"If only you were this persistent when it came to finding a husband." Henry imitated their mother's intonation. Suzie laughed.
"You're such an ass. I see straight through your golden boy routine, Henry Wong."
In response, he just put on his sunglasses, rolling the window up, smile serene; in response, Suzie directed a crude hand gesture his way. That definitely qualified as rude.
Henry backed out of his parking spot. His sister stood in the rearview mirror, hands now stuffed in the pockets of her puffy jacket, growing smaller and smaller as he drove away. It reminded him of when they were children.
Kazu's Auto Repair Services lay just a couple blocks down from Shinjuku Park. The green expanse slid past Henry's right-side window. Nostalgia gripped him, briefly, before fading away into the warm memories of sun-drenched summers. Even after the digimon left they had spent a lot of time there. Although as the years passed the group whittled down to just Takato and Henry.
While fighting Shinjuku morning traffic, Henry took the time to call Rika and Takato, and then Kazu. When he pulled into the cramped side street, Kazu was already waiting for him outside the open garage, face smudged with oil and a towel thrown over his shoulders. A bright grin lit up his face, arms spread wide.
"Welcome to la obra de Shioda. That's Spanish, you know," Kazu said. Henry pulled inside and stepped out of the car.
"How cultured." He tossed Kazu his keys.
The shop matched Kazu's own appearance: cluttered and disorganized—several posters of pinup girls hanging in the back—but brimming with undefinable, contagious energy. It prickled Henry's neck like a sharp breath. Guardromon flickered to life on a monitor hanging over the car, saluting them both.
"Salutations, Henry Wong! How are you?"
"Well enough, all things considered." Henry laughed when Kazu came up and wrapped him in a bear hug.
"I met this girl online. She's Hispanic," he whispered in Henry's ear, "and she totally digs me."
Henry snorted, pushing Kazu back a few paces. "That's great."
Kazu grinned, swiping his thumb across his nose, smearing more oil in the process. "Hell yeah! Know what's wrong with this bad boy?"
He leaned against the hood of the car.
"No idea."
"You're so lucky you know me." Kazu released an overexaggerated sigh. "Someone else would've ripped off your clueless ass by now."
"Help me, Kazu Shioda, you're my only hope."
Kazu's laughter always came from deep in his belly. The crows' feet around his eyes crinkled upward, multiple smiles beaming back at Henry. Popping open the hood, Kazu clambered into the passenger seat.
"I'll check it out. You wanna stick around? I can cook something for us both." A hint of forced casualness entered his voice. Henry shook his head.
"Thanks, but I'm late for work as it is."
"Man, all this time, and you're still lame as hell. You need to get laid, Wong, loosen up a bit." Kazu poked his head out the car window.
"Or mayhaps a vacation!" Guardromon offered helpfully from his monitor.
"I'm good, but thank you." Henry checked his phone. He had received five more e-mails during their conversation. "Call me once you've figured out what happened?"
"Yeah, yeah." Kazu stuck his tongue between his teeth, attention turning almost completely onto the car. "Remind Chumley he owes me money."
Henry grunted vague assent, flicking through his e-mails. He might be able to catch the next train on the Chūō-Sōbu Line if he moved fast.
Oh?
A had e-mailed him back. That was quick.
Henry stepped outside the auto shop, a low buzzing sound emanating from behind him. A bouquet of roses decorated the doorstop to a café. They were in full bloom.
Subject: does that make digivolution inefficient?
"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals; adjust the action steps."
A metallic taste soured the back of his throat. The buzzing grew louder, jagged and painful. Someone may as well have taken a chainsaw to concrete.
Inefficient…
iNefFiciEnt
In—
Many programmers forget a fundamental aspect of coding…
…?
A girl stood before Henry. The buildings slanted sideways when his knees struck pavement. There would be bruises. The end of the road was so far ahead, it was already behind them.
"Isn't it pretty to think so?" asked the girl.
She tilted his face up. Her hands were cold, freezing cold, eyes like twin chips of ice. Then she bit him, fangs slicing clean through his jugular.
No one else was in the office when Takato arrived. Well, that was unusual. Henry had called saying he would be late, though; Rika must be out investigating Jackpot Entertainment. Henry disliked when they used the access point alone. It could be dangerous.
Takato took a few minutes to reorganize some paperwork. Hands on hips, he surveyed the office. He located a blank piece of stationary.
With many small strokes a large tree is felled.
Takato scribbled a cute little doodle of Renamon, Guilmon, and Terriermon chopping down a cherry blossom tree together. He pinned the picture and quote to his motivational cork board, littered with other drawings and sayings. Rika thought it was lame, but then again, Rika thought most things were lame.
Eating leftover bread from yesterday, Takato waited around fifteen minutes more. Still no Henry.
But he should be here soon. Besides, this was important: Cyberdramon and maybe even Guilmon could be in trouble. That qualified the situation as an emergency. Having internally worked current events up to a miniature catastrophe, Takato made a snap decision and strode into the meeting room.
Using the access point always felt strange. A pins-and-needle sensation would start in Takato's toes and quickly numb all other extremities. Last would be his fingers, sparking bright blue, before the access point flashed. His stomach lurched into his mouth. A matrix of numbers formed a tunnel around Takato; a rushing sound filled his ears like the passing of a train. Then it was over.
He stood in the DigiLab.
Nervous, Takato glanced around. He half-expected Henry or Terriermon to jump out from behind a chair and scold him. But the lab was empty, eerily so. The whole place creeped Takato out a little if he was honest. Everything was too white, too sterile. Like a hospital with none of the saved lives. Well, not directly anyway.
Since Takato was alone, he indulged in a mild curiosity, fidgeting with some of Henry's holographic screens. A model of EDEN flickered to life. Red blips signifying people flashed in concentrated areas around the globe.
Apparently, they were testing out the space with a couple stock market companies in preparation for a public launch. Could they not at least have used EDEN for something cool, like a virtual reality MMORPG? Instead, it was just more boring business stuff.
There was a flash of pink light. Takato yelped, whirling around, arms raised in self-defense.
"I can explain!" he said.
Guilmon cocked his head. Takato lowered his arms.
"Oh. Hey, boy."
"Hello, Takato. I had a weird dream last night. Cyberdramon was there."
"Me too. You think…?" Takato's heart skipped a beat. The empathetic link he shared with Guilmon as a child still had not made its return. Maybe this was a sign that would soon change.
"Dunno." Guilmon scratched under his chin. "But anyway, I know the place from my dream! I've been there before. Maybe it's a clue."
"You have? Why didn't you tell me about it before?" Takato asked.
Guilmon shifted, becoming oddly squirrelly. "Was a long time ago. Didn't seem important."
It should not have stung, yet did regardless.
"Well, all right. Let's go check it out." Takato paused. "Where's Beelzemon?"
He had not messaged Takato at all. That was unlike him.
"He said Renamon asked for his help with something."
Oh. Probably the idol case. Satisfied, Takato joined Guilmon on the access pad. The data stream flared back to life, carrying them away.
When they reformed, the air smelled of battery acid. An acrid taste lingered in the back of his throat. The sky was a dull yellow color, wind chimes hanging inert from the branches of dead willow trees. Even Fujin had forgotten this place.
Takato looked around, frowning. His dream had become little more than a blur of color and noise now, but the ghost of déjà vu raised hairs on the back of his neck and arms. Goosebumps erupted along too warm flesh.
"Takato." Guilmon had stepped forward a few paces, twisting to look over his shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"Where we're going, once we enter, you have to promise to stay quiet. Not even a peep. Okay?"
Takato blinked. "Why?"
"Because they'll wake up and try to eat you," Guilmon said earnestly.
"Oh. Okay." Takato swallowed, unnerved. Fantastic.
The wind chime forest was silent as a graveyard.
They crept through bronze torii gates frosted in silver and gold. Part of Takato thought maybe he should take off his sandals. Pray to some unknown, forgotten god; beg forgiveness for trespassing on holy ground.
Which Sovereigns' domain did this place belong to, anyway? Something about the forest felt like it had been set aside: they were interlopers. The nagging sense of not belonging swelled with each step. Takato realized he was sweating, armpits and beard damp.
Guilmon seemed unbothered. However, his movements resembled a prowl, pupils contracted into slits. He had not spoken since the original warning.
Trees began to thin. Takato and Guilmon entered a clearing. It crested into a hill where one last wind chime tree rested atop the apex. A massive tree, ancient, with thick, knotted roots jutting out of the ground.
"Can you please help me fly, Takato?"
Guilmon's voice was low and husky. Takato started.
"Y-yeah, no problem." His own voice sounded strange, like it no longer belonged to him.
He fumbled for his D-Power and the old Hyper-Colosseum card that had seen them through various struggles in the past. It was dog-eared and faded and worn, and Takato was half-convinced there would come a day when it just stopped working because it would no longer slide through the reader.
He swiped the card, familiar surge of energy shivering down his arms. Angelic wings decorated Guilmon's back. They shone like cut diamonds. Guilmon launched himself into the air, twisting upward to brush wind chimes dangling from the tree, and music rained down from on high.
A soft sigh echoed through the meadow as the roots shifted and a cavern into the hill groaned open. Guilmon circled the tree one, two, three times before landing in front of Takato. He looked old in that moment. Sometimes Takato contemplated if and how digimon aged, not that such musings ever went anywhere productive.
"Don't forget, Takato, okay?"
"I won't."
The tunnel was dark, lined with rich black soil. Takato turned on his D-Power to see better, then wondered if that was a mistake. He glanced at Guilmon. Guilmon considered the D-Power briefly before shrugging and continuing onward. Copper wire threaded through the dirt, reflecting a glint of light back at them.
Takato lost all sense of time while they walked through the cavern. Faint designs appeared along the walls and ceiling, drawn with a strange white chalky material in unintelligible code strings. If Henry were there, he might have understood what they meant, but it was all gibberish to Takato.
The cavern dropped away into an underground basin. An enormous spear had been driven through the center of the area, bisecting time and space itself, casting a faint glow over everything. Takato almost gasped but caught himself. Laying fast asleep within the basin were digimon, many of which he recognized (and many which he did not): Agumon, Gabumon, Veemon, Hawkmon, Salamon, and more, all curled around one another, the slight rise and fall of their sides the only signs of life. Fanboyish glee welled within Takato.
Guilmon was staring at him. Takato met his gaze, and Guilmon placed one curved claw over his mouth in the universal 'hush' gesture. Takato nodded, sobering almost instantly. It was hard to imagine these digimon he had grown up watching could be dangerous, but Guilmon would not ask for caution without reason.
The way the earthen walls rose around the basin was reminiscent of the mountains that pinned in so much of Japan. Maybe these were mountain warriors like those of the Omine region; sorcerers said to walk freely through the realms of gods. Henry once mentioned that there might be a link between digimon and myth. If only Takato had paid closer attention.
Guilmon floated down. He reminded Takato of owls seen on a documentary, once, the way he drifted on silent wings and then flared them outward for an equally silent landing. The basin was so full of life and yet so still. A faint dust cloud rose around Guilmon, disturbing the stillness. He moved toward a small purple fox-like dragon digimon and nudged at it with his muzzle.
"Dorumon," Guilmon whispered. His words carried clearly despite how soft-spoken he had turned. "Dorumon, I need your help."
"Mmph." Dorumon growled, cracking one eye open to glower at Guilmon. Then she blinked. "… Guilmon? You change your mind?"
"Nope. I'm looking for someone named Cyberdramon. Have you seen him?"
"Hmmmmm… Cyberdramon… yes, I remember them."
Takato uttered an involuntary noise. Dorumon's head snapped up. The other digimon stopped breathing.
"Did you hear that?" she asked, sounding more alert.
"I think you're just sleepy. Sometimes when I'm sleepy I see things that aren't there. Like dancing fried sausages," Guilmon said carefully. "I see dancing fried sausages a lot."
"…Maybe." Dorumon looked unconvinced.
The other digimon were breathing again. Takato's heart hammered in his throat. He thought it quiet before, but a terrible stillness like a dead man's casket pervaded this place when the gentle yet unnecessary biological rhythms ground to a halt.
Every so often the veil lifted, and he remembered the Digital World was artificial. Not just fantastical, but alien and unnatural. Takato would never understand how Ryo ever lived here for a year without going mad. Shibumi had only been around a few months and came across a few cards short of a full deck.
"Cyberdramon?" Guilmon prompted Dorumon.
"Right. Yes. They drowned a long time ago." Dorumon yawned. "Or was it tomorrow? I don't recall."
Takato desperately wished he could speak.
"Can you try? It's important."
Dorumon stared sleepily over Guilmon's right shoulder. Then she reached out, tracing the hazard symbol on his chest. Guilmon cocked his head. His eyes glowed gold in the dim lighting.
"Beware the garden," Dorumon said. "The tide went out last night."
"I will. Thanks."
Dorumon rolled over, falling back asleep.
Guilmon flew back up to Takato. "We can go, I think I understand."
Well, Takato was glad someone found that comprehensible. They padded back outside, beyond the cavern. The initial awe had faded, and Takato wanted nothing more than to escape. The whole area made his skin crawl.
Guilmon's wings sloughed off his back, shards of shattered white diamonds hovering in the air overhead. Takato thought of Renamon. Then they evaporated, to where he could not say.
"What was that all about?" he asked, once they returned to the DigiLab.
"Cyberdramon isn't in the Digital World at all. At least, not anymore," Guilmon explained. That was not exactly what Takato meant, but he took it in stride.
"Oh. Huh. Well, I…then where is he?" Takato asked.
No digimon could come to earth anymore. There was always EDEN, but digimon supposedly could not go there either without an invitation from a human.
Guilmon shrugged. Then he frowned. "Takato?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you not tell the others about what I showed you?"
Takato stared. He felt another surge of worried anxiety. They had been separated for over twelve years. So much must have happened to Guilmon during that span, so much Takato still did not know and may never know. He had to remind himself that he trusted his partner.
"Sure thing, boy."
Jackpot Entertainment was a refurbished warehouse located near the wharf in Shinagawa. The squat, ugly building covered an unassuming corner of the block. Businessmen trickled in and out the front entrance from time to time, spat out and sucked back in.
Renamon: I brought Beelzemon as back up.
Rika: Good idea. As long as he doesn't annoy you to death, anyway.
Beelzemon: You're a real peach, kid.
"That's an interesting phone."
Rika glanced up at the young businessman who just exited the building. He was looking at her D-Power curiously. Rika pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning against and smiled.
"Thanks. It's an old model from the early aughts. I'm rather fond of it."
"Vintage. Very nice." He smiled back, bowing slightly, before going on his merry way.
Rika's own smile dropped once his back turned. She hated how clunky and obvious the D-Power was, but they had no better options available to them for easy communication with the digimon. Maybe if Henry finally managed to get that app working, but for the time being she would just grin and bear it.
Clipping the D-Power to her belt, Rika headed inside Jackpot Entertainment. The lobby was perfunctory in appearance, with a receptionist behind the registration desk and several men standing around waiting, glued to their phones. They should really get a receptionist for their own agency to ease some of the burdens on Henry. (Although Rika suspected Henry might spontaneously combust if at least three different things were not occupying his attentions simultaneously.)
"Welcome to Jackpot Entertainment!" said the receptionist with a cheery smile. "How might I assist you?"
"Good morning. I was wondering if you'd seen anyone suspicious hanging about recently?"
"Suspicious…?" The receptionist eyed Rika.
"As in unwanted men," Rika clarified. "Otakus?"
"Hmm." She typed on her computer, the clicks loud in the quiet lobby. "Sometimes. We have a no-tolerance policy when it comes to loitering. We take protecting our idols' privacy quite seriously."
Well, that was unhelpful.
"Thank you." Rika paused, pursing her lips. "Could I have the password to the Wi-Fi?"
"Of course. Do you have an appointment?"
Rika stared.
"Rika? What are you doing here?" asked a familiar voice.
There stood Kenta Kitagawa, media pass dangling from a lanyard around his neck. He was as rumpled and harried as ever. A genuine smile broke across Rika's face. Turning toward Kenta, she threw her arms around his neck. Startled, he tensed, staring at her like she had sprouted two extra heads.
"Play along," she murmured before facing the mildly scandalized receptionist.
"Do you know this woman, Mr. Kitagawa?"
"Yes." Kenta adjusted his glasses. He glanced at Rika. She raised an eyebrow. "She's my… girlfriend."
Rika maintained a straight face with great difficulty.
"Oh." The receptionist looked between them, assessing Rika's coiffed appearance in relation to Kenta's disheveled one. "I see."
The urge to defend Kenta was surprisingly strong.
"I love showing my support however I can," Rika chirped. "Even better if it's a surprise."
"That's my honeybunches," Kenta said drily, "always thinking of others before herself."
Rika stepped on his foot, and he grunted. She asked, "Wi-Fi?"
The receptionist told her the password. Rika typed it down as a note on her phone before stepping out of earshot alongside Kenta. He frowned at her.
"Girlfriend? Really?" Rika whispered.
"Wha—what else was I supposed to say?" he whispered back. "Besides, you know I break down under pressure."
Rika just scoffed, sending the password to Renamon and Beelzemon. "What's your story."
"Nothing interesting." Kenta sounded mournful. "They want me to do an article on the idol industry. Fluff piece. I have an interview with an agent scheduled."
"Is that so?" Talk about a stroke of good fortune. Maybe there were gods after all.
"Why do you always do this. And why is it always you?"
"No idea what you mean by that."
"Remember Akibahara?"
"That was one time."
Well, what about when—?"
"A little girl is in danger." A slight exaggeration but the finer details were unimportant. "Can you help or not? Any information on TKC96 would be useful."
He sighed. "I feel like you seriously undervalue my side of our relationship."
That made Rika laugh.
A middle-aged man with mousey hair called for Kenta. Rika glared at him. Kenta raised his hands in acquiescence, mouthing the words I'll do what I can before turning away.
With a groan, Rika took one of the magazines down off the shelf, idly flipping through it while she waited. The glossy edition had attracted her attention because it featured Hada on the cover, alongside the other girls in the group. There were ten altogether, young and sweet, dressed in soft, flowery pastel clothing and elaborate ribbons. Hada stood at the forefront; from what Rika understood, she was one of the more popular members.
The magazine was insipid. Bright colors and loud phrases telling her what to feel and how. Much of the articles were miscellaneous details of the girls' personal lives. So much hiragana devoted to saying nothing.
Rika absently connected her headphones to her phone, listening to the new album from a band Jeri had told her about. She paged through another magazine, head bobbing to the music, tracing over the glossy images without absorbing their contents. Jackpot Entertainment was a smaller agency, nowhere close to powerhouses like Burning Production or Johnny & Associates, although TKC96 were easily their most successful group. They also had a couple of virtual idols on the rise, one who looked vaguely familiar to Rika, but that was about it.
Rika's D-Power vibrated. She clicked pause, letting her headphones rest around her neck.
Renamon: You need to see this.
Rika sidled into the singular bathroom, locking the door behind her. The holographic image flickered to life, revealing a dark green space threaded with yellow circuitry and silvery pins. A strange creature oozed onto the screen, fractals shifting endlessly across smooth silver skin. Then another, and another.
Rika dropped the D-Power. Dread filled her, so sudden and strong it took her a second to realize what she even felt. She swallowed. Those had to be the creatures eating digignomes Renamon mentioned the day before.
"But does it mean anything?" Rika asked aloud.
No answer. The D-Power had gone dark. A bit panicked, Rika picked it up, shaking it. "Renamon?"
Nothing happened.
Nothing was happening.
A message pinged.
Renamon: We had to leave.
Relief flood Rika. She sagged a little, arm pressed against the bathroom wall for support. Her reflection stared back at her in the mirror, pale and sweaty. There were dark bags under her purple eyes.
Sometimes, Rika really hated the boundary that still existed between her and Renamon. In the old days, she could just say Renamon's name, and there she would be, hovering over Rika's shoulder, immutable as ever. Moments like these Rika felt helpless. Useless, even, a state of existence she detested.
Beelzemon: What the hell? I've never seen those freaks get aggressive before.
Rika: I'm just glad you're both all right.
Beelzemon: Aw, toots, you're makin' me blush.
Rika grinned. The grin quickly faltered, however. Strange new digital lifeforms appearing around the agency she was investigating... it might be a coincidence, but Rika no longer believed in coincidences when it came to the Digital World.
A knock on the door jarred her from her thoughts.
"Sorry! One moment!" Rika washed her hands, hastily saying goodbye to Renamon and Beelzemon, and stepped outside the bathroom past a disgruntled elderly lady.
Renamon: We didn't find much. Some security footage. And traces of numbers from an outside source.
She sent the numbers.
Rika worried at her lower lip. The dots were all there but none of them were connecting.
Kenta reappeared half an hour later, smiling and bowing goodbye to the agent before approaching Rika. She closed the fifth magazine she had worked through with a sharp snap. Kenta must have recognized the expression on her face because he ushered her out the building without another word.
They wandered over to the docks to watch ships sail in and out of the harbor.
"This might be bigger than I first thought," Rika said at last.
Kenta drew out two cigarettes in response. He quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Just one." Rika plucked the filter from his fingers. Kenta lit up for both of them, the cigarette's end burning orange.
"Remember when you, me, and Kazu used to smoke at the park?" he asked.
She inhaled. You never truly forgot the taste of a cigarette. The memory slumbered in membrane chambers of the lungs, waiting for the right moment to stretch webbed, fibrous wings along curved jail cell walls.
"Mmhmm. The two of you were a terrible influence."
Rika was unsure when Kenta and Kazu became more her friends than Takato's. But somehow, during high school (maybe because they placed near her private school), the shift had occurred. Or perhaps even before, all the way back when she had been saddled with them in the Digital World, when they tacitly realized a shared mean-spiritedness that Takato and Henry lacked.
"Us?" Kenta snorted. "We both know you just did it to make your mom mad."
It worked, too. Rumiko had been livid; she had been dating some uptight control freak back then. Rika smiled at the recollection. Even though their relationship was not as fractured anymore, it would never be like what Takato and Henry had with their parents. They had wounded each other too deeply in too many different ways.
Rika wondered, idly, if that was one of the reasons she clicked with Jeri. Even after drifting from the others, she had kept in touch with Jeri throughout the years. One with a father like an employer, the other with a mother like a sister. They made quite the pair.
"Henry wasn't happy when he found out, either. I think he was convinced we'd all die of leukemia by the time we turned eighteen."
Henry tended to turn passive aggressive when it came to expressing disapproval. It pissed Rika off immensely at the time, even more because he had not been strictly wrong. The man had never seen a moral high ground he would not hesitate to stand on. Takato floundered between them for weeks in the aftermath of their little cold war. So much inane teenage drama over stupid bullshit.
Kenta smiled. The smile faded. "The guy I interviewed… he had an access point in his office."
Rika blew out a smoke ring. For the first time, she contemplated the possibility that someone other than a fan targeted Fumiko Hada.
"Is there any audio I can use? Anything at all?"
"One of these days you're going to get me fired, Rika Nonaka."
"Good. Your job fucking blows. Come work for us instead."
"You make it sound so tempting," Kenta said. "But I don't really believe in mixing business with pleasure."
"Shut up." Rika was laughing again.
"Even my fake girlfriends are mean to me." Kenta turned droll. "Life is so unfair."
"You're never letting that go, are you."
"Not for a while, anyway." Kenta rummaged through his pockets, pulling out a slip of paper. "I was able to get the IP address off the access point. Maybe it'll help."
On impulse, Rika kissed his cheek. Kenta turned pink, pleased with himself. Seagulls drifted across the port, hovering just above the waves. The air was thick with the scent of salt and nicotine.
"I changed my mind," Rika decided, "you're too useful to not keep around as my pet journalist."
Kenta rolled his eyes. They smoked together in silence until Rika's phone rang with a call from Kazu.
Henry woke up to the steady beeping of a monitor.
He stared at the ceiling: just a white expanse of nothing. Absolutely nothing. It took a while for coherent thoughts to form, mind lost as it was to the fog.
Yamaki sat a foot from the medical cot. The black of his suit burned against the white background. His hair had turned pure gray over the years. He was not even that old. Maybe it was like prime ministers and people in positions of power, how they aged faster than other people. Normal people. Good people.
Henry licked his cracked lips. "Where…"
"Your friend brought you to the Red Cross center. He's waiting with your parents downstairs."
Henry felt like he had just been trudging upward through sludge. He touched his neck, the skin smooth and unbroken, where a curious phantom pain lingered. He focused on Yamaki, latching onto the familiar flicker of animosity like a lifeline.
"Why are you here?"
Yamaki flicked his lighter open and closed. "You kept ignoring my e-mails. I decided to be proactive."
Henry's arm prickled. An IV drip fed him potassium and saline. The sun was setting beyond the window, a dull, angry red color, partially masked by sullen clouds. No one ever remembered ugly sunsets, which Henry found tragic.
He looked around for his D-Power. Not contacting Terriermon all day would no doubt worry his partner. But the staff must have taken his stuff because only a generic hospital gown covered his body. He patted down the soft green cloth twice over, as though his D-Power would materialize if he was thorough enough.
"Well, I'm not exactly in a position to leave. What do you want?" Henry finally asked.
"Last night Nyx tracked a large transfer of data off the Digital World."
Henry wanted to roll his eyes. Nyx. Just Hypnos by another name. The semantics of it all irritated him; he had to force himself to focus.
"Where?"
No digimon could come to the Real World. They would have to break their data down to the size of quarks then synthesize proteins from them. It was impossible: Henry would know better than anyone.
"Where do you think?" Yamaki asked.
A beat.
"You still haven't said what you want."
"We need more information on EDEN, Henry. You can't keep avoiding this. They forced through the bill last week to install public access points around the scramble crossing. Kamishiro already has who knows how many politicians from both branches of the National Diet in their pockets."
A headache was building behind Henry's eyes.
"…At what cost?"
He could not forget the walled hideout. Henry knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Yamaki would separate them from their digimon again. Somehow. Someway. For the greater good. Henry respected it, even, in a distant, academic sort of way. But not enough to concede. There had to be another option. He was done operating at the expense of adults who only wanted to use him. Henry would fix this on his own terms only.
Click. Click. Click. The sound was a polyrhythm to the monitor's rhythmic beeping. Henry watched his heartrate spike.
"I know you were burned in the past working with an organization, but—"
"Twice." The belligerence of his own words surprised Henry. He almost apologized but caught himself.
The lighter clicked again, louder. Sharper.
"I suppose so. Look. It's like this. When I was younger, everyone treated me as the smartest person in the room. I had everything handed to me. I felt on top of the world. Only to be outsmarted by rogue data and a group of snot-nosed brats."
Henry said nothing.
"The point I'm trying to make is there's always someone—or something—smarter than you. In ways you least expect. Never forget that, Henry. You're brilliant, more brilliant than I ever was, but…"
Yamaki frowned. Henry returned to staring at the ceiling. He was so tired.
"I'll think about it." His tone had become neutral.
Yamaki fell silent. When Henry turned his head, the other man was gone.
Chapter 3: sometimes they cry out to you
Notes:
author's note: Apologies for the long wait. Life has been hectic and this was a bitch to write. (And re-write, and re-re-write, and... you get the picture, I hope.) I'm still not quite satisfied, but I'd like to move the story forward at some point, so here we are.
Chapter Text
Henry hated hospitals.
He never hated them before. Before Shibumi died, before EDEN existed. Now the harsh fluorescent lights stabbed at his eyes; comfortable hospital furniture was as much a myth as edible hospital food. They were places filled with false smiles and people whose compassion had worn thin, stretched out into gray and colorless forms.
Endless gray and spiraling black fractal forms…
"Mr. Wong, I want to reiterate that this is a bad idea." The nurse frowned as she filled out an AMA report.
"Thank you." He took back his NHI card.
Henry stared placidly at a point beyond her shoulder. He itched to check his D-Power again—he had just about managed to scroll through Terriermon's increasingly frantic stream of messages and respond—but refrained in the name of his one true god, courtesy. The nurse sighed, resigned, signing the papers with a pointed flourish.
He had waited for his parents to finish fussing over him (Kazu left too, awkwardly offering a discount that Henry begged off) and leave before asking the staff to let him check out early. Early as in now. Both Takato and Rika also called, but Henry had convinced them to stay home. It was not worth the trouble.
Outside was dark and miserable. The scent of rain hovered unseen in the chill air. Henry settled on a cement bench under the hospital building's awning and withdrew his D-Power.
T-dawg: Change is inevitable, except for vending machines.
T-dawg: C'mon, that at least deserves an eyeroll emoji.
T-dawg: [Media Link]
T-dawg: I tracked those creepy ass squid monsters for you AND looked over the beta of that mod of yours. You owe me now, I missed the latest Attack on Titan episode because of you.
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: I was joking about the Attack on Titan thing, I don't even think it's that good.
T-dawg: [Media Link]
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Did I do something to make you mad? This isn't funny.
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Look I get that I'm not that great of a partner and sometimes I can be obnoxious but you never ignore me like this so if something's wrong you need to tell me because I worry about you a lot and if it's something I did just tell me and I'll do better Henry I swear—
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: "I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement. I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things"
T-dawg: see I can be pretentious too.
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
T-dawg: Henry?
Henry: Moumentai
T-dawg: fuck off
Henry pressed his hands against his temples. Not exactly a shining example of emotional intelligence. Then again, it always deserted him at the worst moments.
Sometimes Henry would look at Rika and Renamon or Takato and Guilmon and think: They make sense. And he could not say the same for himself and Terriermon. But he loved Terriermon. Or maybe Henry loved the Terriermon he once knew. Everything had been simpler when they were children, glazed over in a golden sheen of innocent nostalgia.
Henry: It's complicated. I'm on my way right now. I'll explain everything.
He walked to Nakano Broadway. Scattered rain droplets kissed his hair and cheeks. Henry picked up the pace to avoid the downpour, escaping inside right when the floodgates poured open.
The darkened office enveloped him. Water drummed against the windowpanes while shadows murmured on the opposite wall. No one else was around. Henry was rumpled and damp and not supposed to use the access point alone, but that no longer mattered. This took priority.
Terriermon was watching a show in the Lab. Some anime Henry failed to recognize because he had never particularly enjoyed anime. If his father had not been involved with digimon, Henry half-believed he would not have cared about that either as a child. It was all the same to him, specific patterns of narrative and theme that led to one of several possible universal conclusions, accompanied by loud, empty spectacle.
"Hey. What's up?" Terriermon spun the chair around, posture and tone relaxed, smile failing to reach his eyes.
Instead of answering, Henry accessed the Lab interface. A holographic screen of a checkers board appeared between them, vertical and horizontal lines blurring Terriermon's face. Henry highlighted a middle row.
"The board is infinite in all directions. Rules are simplified checkers. Every time you use a piece you lose a piece. If you start below the line, with as many pieces as you need in whatever configuration you like, what's the highest row above the line you can reach?"
Terriermon stared at him. His ears perked then drooped and then perked again. At last, he moved toward the board and began fiddling with the digital checker pieces. Whenever he tried to cheat Henry would correct him.
The anime continued playing. A boy fell into a girl's enormous breasts. Loud orchestral music trumpeted on while an action scene commenced.
"Four rows," Terriermon eventually said.
"Because of the monovariant: Conway Checkers." Henry smiled. Terriermon's expression softened. "I passed out. I'm not sure what happened. Are you…?"
"I'm fine." Terriermon turned off the game board. "And you?"
The white walls of the lab pulsed around them. If Henry squinted, maybe he would see the invisible lines of script creating the world they inhabited. The road here was seemingly endless.
"Data transferred to EDEN last night. A lot of it."
Terriermon hopped back into his seat, fixating on the show again. "Huh. Might explain why Master Mustache himself contacted me."
"Azulongmon?" Henry snapped around, surprised.
There had been almost zero communication with the Sovereigns upon their return. Azulongmon had greeted them, briefly, cordial yet distant, but that was about the extent of it. Henry had not been in a hurry to reacquaint himself with the likes of Zhuqiaomon, anyway.
"Yeah. Guess he wants to talk, or something. All vaguely grandiose and threatening, y'know, how those lot are." Terriermon picked his nose. Distracted from his worries, Henry had to fight off a burgeoning smile.
"You're disgusting."
Terriermon giggled before turning contemplative. "When you think about it, an infinite board couldn't have a middle. Needs a beginning and an end."
The boundaries—or lack thereof—they set would always be defined by their perceptions. Only with the assistance of technology could they surpass such limitations.
"I'm staying overnight. I want to monitor EDEN." Henry sat down beside Terriermon. Terriermon shrugged in acquiescence.
The EDEN model revolved around Henry. Lights signaling life pulsed blood red amongst pallid blue shades. How many of those lives were artificial? How could he possibly tell when all life transferred as data files onto EDEN?
Henry pulled up statistics, comparing the population numbers between today and yesterday. There was a marked increase that had since leveled out. The information was incomplete; he knew how many distinct data packets had transferred onto EDEN, but not the precise amount of data contained within each individual packet. The fact Nyx might know more grated on his pride.
The trashy anime continued playing in the background.
Henry checked the messages on his D-Power again. But Terriermon had already deleted them. They may well have never existed at all.
Rika found Henry when she first came into the office: conked out by the access point. He must have pulled an all-nighter. Him skipping out of the hospital and staying here was the Henriest thing imaginable, and Rika should have predicted it; still, it was a surprise to enter and see him already there.
And yet, Rika was ashamed to admit she also felt relief. They could not manage their current workload without Henry. A true double-edged sword. She groaned while hanging up her coat, feeling far older than her actual age. Going to make coffee, Rika realized they were in short supply of that most vital substance. How tragic.
"You," she said, kneeling beside Henry and poking his shoulder, "are a total dope."
Henry just slumped forward. The vacant expression was more than a little unnerving, as if his very soul had been sucked out. What a start to the day. With another belabored groan, she headed down to the Nakano Broadway underground market to browse their convenience stores for something cheap and quick.
For as long as Rika could remember, she had found convenience stores unsettling. Rows of packaged instant goods towered over her, brightly colored sales pitches stretching in every direction, almost as shiny as the plastic smiles on the uniformed workers' faces. It was early enough to remain mostly deserted, but others had begun trickling in. Even when busy, a strange undercurrent was ever present. A curious, almost surreal reticence disturbed on occasion by a loud toddler or irate customer before reverting to the status quo.
Rika perused the aisles for coffee, wondering if she should buy something for Henry too. Aspirin, maybe, or…? Shelves displaying CDs caught her eye, familiar picture of TKC96 beaming out from many of them alongside those of Hatsune Miku and other huge names. She picked up the case and turned it over, lost in thought.
Her phone rang.
Rumiko.
"Mom? What's up?" Rika cradled the phone between her neck and ear while she returned the CD to the shelf.
"Rika, darling! I chatted with Daiki, and he agreed to arrange a meeting. I can give you his e-mail address and number now, if you like?"
Rika had entirely forgotten about the request she made, distracted by everything that happened afterward. She sighed, adjusting her grip on the phone. "Yeah, sure. That'd be great."
"Oh, I'll have Monique send it later. You'll never believe the confrontation I had with this new designer, honestly, the nerve some of these up-and-comers have…"
Rumiko launched into a rant about her Kyoto trip without much more preamble. Rika just meandered down the aisles until she found her coffee, grunting every so often to maintain the façade of active listening. When she went to check out, a recognizable face caught her attention near the vending machines.
"Have to go, love you, bye!" Rika hung up, cutting off Rumiko's protest, then went and tapped Fumiko Hada on the shoulder. The girl flinched but relaxed upon spotting Rika.
"Oh, hello, detective. How's the… how's everything?" Hada asked.
"Not bad. Wait for me while I pay?"
Hada nodded.
Once Rika checked out, they took the escalator to the ground floor. She stole discrete looks at Hada every so often. The girl appeared plainer than the day before, much less so compared to the magazine or CD covers. Even doctored by makeup and editing software, Hada would never have been described as a striking beauty—and Rika would know, since Rumiko's model friends were of the strikingly beautiful variety. No. What Fumiko Hada was, was cute, in a curiously unassuming manner.
They stood near a closed Chinese restaurant, off to the side and almost out of sight. Nakano Broadway was influenced by metabolism architecture—a post-war movement fusing megastructures with organic biological growth—though it was not considered one like, say, the Nakagin Capsule Tower. While Nakano mostly tailored to niche Otaku subsets and tourists these days, Rika found its interior quite comforting. There was a rustic warmth to the brown and red color gradients basked in a low voltage, incandescent glow; a sense of belonging to the disorganized layout of the building that others lacked.
Hada was nervously fiddling with the tab of her energy drink. At last, she asked, "Can I have my phone back?"
"Oh. Uh, sure." Rika was relieved to find it on her person; it would have been a pain to walk back up and fetch it. Hada snatched the phone out of Rika's hands, unlocking it in several deft strokes before scrolling through some social media website. "Where's your manager?"
"Mr. Ogawa?" Hada's eyes remained glued to the phone screen. "He's busy. Besides, I try not to go out in public with men."
Rika said nothing.
"Did you find anything?" Hada asked.
Rika shook her head.
"But you saw the pictures."
Rika nodded.
Hada hesitated, meeting her gaze for the first time. Naked vulnerability hovered there, a kind Rika was unsure how to placate. She wondered, suddenly, if her own mother had ever experienced anything similar. Rumiko would have told her though, right?
"There's a lead I'm confident on," Rika said in a careful tone. Hada perked up and set her phone aside. Rika debated what to say or not to say, fumbling for the right words that would set Hada more at ease. The longer the awkward silence extended the further Hada's face fell. "It's nothing concrete yet, though."
"Oh."
Neither spoke. Rika fidgeted, wondering if she should leave or try—
"We're not very good," Hada said, tone laced with bitterness. The non-sequitur gave Rika pause. Then she realized Hada had been staring beyond them, at the TKC96 poster displayed atop the partition.
"I'm sure that's not true."
Hada reconsidered. "We're okay, I guess."
Rika attempted smiling at her how Jeri would have smiled, all kind and soft and unassuming. She could not for the life of her tell if it was effective, and mostly just felt like an idiot. Hada remained pensive, turning the energy drink around and around in her tiny hands. She was so young.
"There were other pictures on my phone. I deleted them, and—aren't things supposed to stay gone, when you delete them? But they… they're worse."
Rika tilted her head.
"You think I'm a slut, don't you?"
Taken aback, Rika blinked. "I think… not at all. Whoever did this is an asshole, end of story. Uh, excuse the language."
Hada smiled, faint and wan, but a smile nonetheless. It soon slipped away. "The person I was with, they could get in a lot of trouble too. If the other photos leak."
"That won't happen. You and yours'll be fine with us. Promise." Rika quashed the rising curiosity inspired by Hada's elusiveness, choosing instead to focus on the next step. "I should get going, though. Work never stops and all that. You need anything?"
Hada shook her head. "Thank you, Detective Nonaka. For helping."
They exchanged goodbyes and parted ways. Rika headed upstairs to the office, more determined than ever to crack this case.
Takato was mildly annoyed that he had shown up on time for once and still managed to be the last one in the office. Doubly so since Henry should not even be there in the first place. Unbelievable.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine. It was just—just a blip. That's all," Henry said. He did not look fine. He looked haggard and drained.
Takato combed his wild mane of hair out from his face. "Man, you gotta take care of yourself. Your body's like, like a temple."
Rika snorted.
They were in the meeting room, Takato and Rika seated while Henry paced around the table.
"I promise you, I wouldn't be here if I thought I couldn't handle it."
"But—"
"Drop it, Takato." Henry's voice brooked no argument, and Takato surrendered with a shrug. The fight was never worth it when Henry shifted into these types of moods. "Anyway, what's the plan?"
"Well, what do we all know?" Rika asked. She held up a hand, counting off on her fingers. "One: something's going on with EDEN. Two: something's going on with the Digital World and these weird new creatures. Three: something's going on with these weird new creatures and Jackpot Entertainment. Ergo, Jackpot Entertainment probably has some sort of involvement with EDEN and, therefore, Kamishiro Enterprises."
"Let's not be hasty," Henry said. "It could be a coincidence."
"Give me a break, Henry. They have access points available before they've been legalized. Even if everything else was a coincidence, that's a huge red flag."
Henry rubbed his chin, frowning.
Takato quietly watched them volley back and forth, fiddling with his gnawed cuticles. To better center himself, he grabbed a piece of stationary and began doodling Guilmon sketches. The lines and shapes of the familiar silhouette helped calm him and focus his resolve.
Once a lull in the conversation presented itself, however, Takato interjected: "Uh, there's something else. Cyberdramon might be involved."
"What?!" Henry and Rika said simultaneously.
So Takato explained, somewhat sheepish, how he had spent the past few months searching for Cyberdramon. You could always tell how pissed off Rika was by the number of snarky comments she made, and currently she remained dead silent. Uh oh. Now she had her arms crossed, meaning they fast approached a code pineapple.
"You used the access point alone?" Henry asked once Takato finished speaking.
"Uh—not often, yesterday yeah, but… I mean, you used it too!" Takato had slumped under Henry's forceful, exasperated stare; now he straightened, righteous indignation stiffening his spine.
"Right. But only to the Lab. If something happens to us in the Digital World, we'll be stuck in a coma. Like Shibumi, except, I don't know if there'll be a way to wake back up. You know this. How could you be so irresponsible?"
"But… I wasn't alone. I had Guilmon. And usually Beelzemon helps, too." A familiar surge of helpless frustration rushed through Takato. Henry's caution was often justified, but other times it left Takato—and Rika, though she voiced it less often—chafing at the bit. Inaction was still, in and of itself, an action.
"Beelzemon's been helping? Why didn't he say anything to Renamon? Or me, for that matter." Rika spoke, self-imposed vow of silence broken, clearly aggrieved.
"I-I asked him not to because last time I brought it up you got upset—"
"Yeah, for good reason!" Rika snapped.
She had shifted into attack mode, all crackling lines of barely restrained animosity, and Takato braced himself for impact. But she just continued to glare, hands clenched into fists. Takato's arms rose, palms turned outward in a mollifying gesture. He was embarrassed to realize the corners of his eyes were damp. Evening out his breathing, Takato battled down the swirling pre-cry stickiness gathering behind the eyes and at the back of the throat.
"I… I want to make sure Cyberdramon's okay, is all."
And just like that, the fiery anger went out, leaving behind nothing but ashen sadness. Rika pinched the bridge of her nose and turned away to brew a new pot of coffee. The rich scent of percolating caffeine soon wafted from that direction.
Henry was frowning again, a deep crease darkening his brow. "So why do you think Cyberdramon's involved with EDEN? You still haven't said."
"Oh." In, out. In, out. Like how they did in tai chi. "Oh! Right, yeah. Well, you see, I had this dream—and, and Guilmon had it too, and we, uh, we talked to some digimon and they told us that Cyberdramon was… gone. And I don't know where else he could go but EDEN."
Silence. The sound of liquid pouring into ceramic filled the room. Henry's expression smoothed over, transformed into pure bemusement. "What? What digimon?"
"Uh…" Takato mentally flailed, having not thought this through. "Dunno. They were just passing by, and they, they, they'd seen him."
Henry tilted his head. Aw, nuts. Takato could already feel himself cracking—if ever he was taken as a POW, Japan would be so screwed.
What would happen if they found out where he had been? All those strange, slumbering digimon waking and crawling from below to devour them whole while Guilmon watched, disappointed, golden gaze veiled with secrets. Takato shivered.
"What was the dream about?" Rika sat on the table's edge, leaning back on one hand; the other hand gripped her coffee white-knuckle hard. Her clear-coated nails gleamed under the office lights while she watched him over the mug's lip, expression opaque.
Takato gratefully seized the topic change. He explained what he remembered to the best of his abilities, the memory of the dream frayed into surreal fragments. There lies a thief by the gates, oh bringer of dreams, and they watch by night.
Rika and Henry both considered the new information. Takato broke the quiet first:
"Not sure there's much else we can do there, except keep an eye out, anyway. But we definitely need to investigate that IP address. Who's staying and who's going?"
All three, simultaneously:
"I'm going."
A beat. The strained atmosphere dissipated as they glanced at each other before chuckling in unison. Takato grinned and stood to grab some leftover coffee. He poured several packets of sweetener and cream into it, mood lightening alongside his drink.
"Draw straws?" Henry suggested.
Even if using the access point had been completely safe, someone would need to keep in contact with other potential clients. They should hire a receptionist or something, to be honest. Takato knew Suzie was interested—and knew Henry kept turning her down, which Takato found strange. She would have been perfect for the job. It was safe, too, so the whole protective angle made no sense. Maybe it was just another one of those weird sibling issues. Lucky Takato was an only child, then.
"Henry," Rika said, words coated in sugary-sweet sarcasm, "you just got discharged from the hospital."
Henry's face fell.
"Remember to alert me for an emergency log out if necessary."
"We know, Henry."
"Right. But also, make sure—"
"We know, Henry." Rika swiveled in her seat to pin him down with a pointed look. "By the by, a contact of mine will want to co-ordinate a meeting. If you could be a pal and set that up, I'd be forever grateful."
"I will." Henry grumpily flipped open his laptop. Despite his outward irritation, he was secretly relieved to avoid EDEN. The few times he set foot there triggered bad memories and a metallic taste rusted through with guilt.
"As soon as we find anything, we'll let you know," Takato assured him.
"I know." Henry managed a tepid smile. "Just don't forget to—"
"Henry."
"Sorry, sorry. Good luck, stay safe."
And then they were gone.
Henry was alone.
A wave of exhaustion washed over him, the events of the previous twenty-four hours at last hitting him in full. Henry leaned forward and put most of weight on his elbows, knuckles kneading into his temples to stem the migraine there. It throbbed in rhythm with the shadow incisions on his neck. A visit with sensei might be in order—he had not felt this off-kilter in ages.
First, Henry sorted out Rika's contact. Scheduling a time slot that worked for both was trivial: Daiki Yoshimoto was retired and had nothing but time, it seemed. They could meet at almost any time during the week. The only potential conflict Henry knew of was Friday morning, because Rika always had tea with her grandmother and Jeri around then. Instead, he confirmed for late afternoon the day prior.
Several text messages and calls rolled in, including one from Kazu. The work on his car was finished and he could stop by to pick it up whenever he felt better. Henry made no mention of his discharge, but also found he was in no hurry to stop by again.
Once that was done, Henry scrolled through the list of missing persons and infidelity requests to select a new case, scrolling through the clienteles' list. A pharmacist suspected someone—likely one of their techs—was stealing fentanyl from the clinic and selling it on the darknet. The job was twofold since the clinic's charting security had been breached in addition to the selling of prescription medication. It seemed simple enough. Henry began by typing a referral list of stellar red team specialists he had worked with during the Kamishiro days. Then he moved to reconnaissance, requesting information on coworkers and company port numbers from his employer.
Depending on the badge readers they used, he might contact someone who made a living faking employee IDs to see if any recent orders had been placed. Under normal circumstances, he would have had Terriermon assist, but figured his partner wanted some space. Henry could complete it fine on his own, everything would just take longer.
In that sense, digimon bore remarkable similarity to quantum computers. Shibumi had even hypothesized digignomes as purely quantum entities, unconstrained by qubit limits or quantum decoherence. He also suggested all digignomes networked with each other via—if not electromagnetic waves, then an analogous concept. While most of Shibumi's theories had fallen more into the insane ramblings category than anything viable or even coherent, Henry always felt both ideas held merit. Neither had ever been able to explain why this might be the case, however, for there had been no chance to study the creatures until years after Shibumi passed away.
Work usually settled Henry's nerves, but today his mind kept ranging across a jagged gorge of electrical wire and jagged fiberglass. He messed around with an old flowchart and considered modding his D-Power further. He had tinkered with it extensively over the past few years, reluctant to move on despite Rika's insistence they needed an upgrade. For one, the operating system was complicated and required specific hardware to function; for another, holding the D-Power felt a lot like holding a sliver of the best version of himself in the palm of his hand. He had spent many nights cooped up in a tiny office building writing and rewriting complex functions, with only the D-Power by his side to spur him on.
Instead, Henry selected a half-finished article written not long after reuniting with Terriermon. Reminiscing about Shibumi often brought him to melancholic frames of reference.
Kami, Plato, and Faith in Relation to the Digital Image
When one thinks of the term kami, it calls to mind Izanagi and Izanami thrusting a spear into the waters of the world; of Amaterasu creeping out of the cave to return the sun; of Susanoo slaying the eight forked serpent to protect seven daughters. But Japanese is a language of ambiguity, and the true nature of kami is difficult for humanity to grasp. Kami can be found in the core existence of everything, incorporating the harmonizing power of Musubi.
In this we see the digital image echo and replicate cultures divorced from context. Izanami and Izanagi and their images have been iterated and re-iterated upon to the point of pastiche. Fredric Jameson once said, "Cultural production has been driven back inside the mind, within the monadic subject: it can no longer look directly out of its eyes at the real world for the referent but must, as in Plato's cave, trace its mental image of the world on its confining walls."
The question, then, becomes this: can these digital shadows come alive? What does it mean, to have progressed to a point where the image has not just subsumed reality, but become real? Perhaps forms are now truly impossible to glimpse, cave inescapable, the demiurge at last well and truly dead. Harken back to thought experiments where we ponder whether a person whose neurons are replaced with silicon chips are still capable of subjective experiences—except with the abstract and mythic personified instead of flesh and blood. There are a multiplicity of meaning and tradition behind the word inari; there is only one Renamon. I argue that these concepts are inextricably linked to understanding digital life and how they mirror the ineffable, the intrinsic of our world; and transform it into unique phenomena that both reflects and distorts…
Ping.
Another e-mail.
Henry hesitated: A may have responded again. The paranoia ebbed then flowed, leaving him feeling foolish. Henry clicked open the e-mail.
It was from Haru Ogawa, containing the upfront portion of payment and tickets to the next TKC96 concert. Henry found the promotional material rather tacky, but supposed a job was a job. He sent the tickets to Suzie because they seemed more her scene. He then leaned back in his seat and stared out the window and wondered at what point his life would feel like it had meaning. After a moment, he continued typing the document, but instead wrote:
We're more connected than ever, and yet I have never felt more alienated.
While Takato could count the number of times he had visited EDEN proper on one hand, he was confident it had never looked quite like this.
EDEN took heavy inspiration from the Art Deco movement in its overall design. Each domain was cruise liner-white, with a GUI of vibrant neon colors stripped down to sleek geometrical shapes signposting the layout. Here—wherever here was, exactly—the spatial perspective was enigmatic with a barely discernable horizon line. A multiplicity of conjoined, semi-transparent cubes stretched in every direction. The shade of green was difficult to describe, textured in diamond-star pinpricks. Peering at them for too long gave Takato a headache, for it felt like tumbling into infinity.
No one else was near them. Takato, Rika, and their digimon partners had arrived at the IP address undetected. The access pad glowed briefly beneath their feet before shutting off.
"I sense a digimon, Takato." Guilmon snapped him out of his daze.
"Uh. Right. Let's go, then."
Rika strode forward without comment, up the—well, path would be generous, as it more resembled the mountainside of a Minecraft biome. He trailed behind her, determined not to obsess over whether or not Rika was mad at him. Renamon flitted ahead to scout while Guilmon brought up the rear, expression thoughtful. Whatever he was thinking, he kept hidden.
If Takato was younger, he would have started babbling right about now. But he had grown more comfortable with quiet over the years—helped by the fact his two best friends could often be rather laconic, a far cry from Takato's childhood friendships with Kazu and Kenta. But sometimes it seemed that because of this, his imagination was less restless, less fanciful, and he mourned the loss.
Takato assessed their surroundings again. Although by no means an expert, it seemed probable to Takato that the programming for EDEN had been tampered with here. "Henry'll have a field day when he sees this."
"Henry needs to get laid," Rika said. "He's wound so tight you could use him to tell time."
Takato giggled despite himself. Much of Henry's stress stemmed from recent events, and for valid reason—but still. Rika smirked. Takato asked, "Do you really think he's okay?"
The smirk faded, expression neutral once more. "Henry knows how to take care of himself."
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." Reassured, Takato nodded in agreement. They continued walking in companionable silence.
"You ask Jeri yet?" Rika asked out of nowhere.
Takato almost tripped. His voice went up an octave: "S-she didn't mention it to you?"
"Nah."
"Oh. Well, um…" Takato swallowed. He had approached Rika for advice in confidence, expecting her to never mention it again except in the event of an apocalypse. It was one of those unwritten rules. "Yeah, all casual like we practiced, but I dunno. She just deflected and hasn't really said anything since."
"Hmmm."
"Hmmm. Hmmm? What does that even mean?!"
Rika shrugged. "If you're serious about wanting kids, you'll probably need to have a serious talk about it."
"I… I guess. I don't wanna pressure her or anything, though," Takato said, morose.
It started a few weeks after they reunited with the digimon. Takato had been taking a walk through their old stomping grounds, reminiscing about the strangest and most wonderful year of his life. The school children clambering over hideous playground equipment had inspired him; a tender longing remained smoldering in his breast like banked coals ever since. But Jeri had been so softly sad for so many years, and between the bakery and, and, and tai chi—for some reason—it seemed she was at last turning a corner. And he was not stupid, he knew pregnancies could be complicated and post-partum depression was very real and very serious. He just wanted her to be happy, and the possibility she might agree for his sake alone was almost worse than an outright refusal.
"You should tell my mom that," Rika said sourly. It pulled Takato out of his musings, for which he was grateful.
"Your mom and my mom should start a seminar on how to wield guilt, would be a huge hit," Takato said. Rika smiled. "You'd be a good mother though."
Rika became disconcerted and began rubbing her wrist with the opposite hand. "It's not just that. It's… complicated."
"What's Ryo think?"
"Ryo is Ryo," Rika said, cryptic, ice creeping into her tone.
He took the hint and dropped it. The mention of Ryo once again had him second guessing just how angry Rika might still be. No one had mastered the art of bottled rage quite like her.
They crested the hill, which dipped into a curved valley of cubes. The bottom became smooth, a verdant green half-dome of the strange material. At the center jutted an enormous rock-shaped crystal spire filled with floating binary code.
The area was deserted.
Paranoia struck Takato in full force. Why did that Jackpot Entertainment employee have an access point? Where was everyone? Where were they?
"The digimon vanished," Renamon commented, appearing out of nowhere. Takato jumped—he would never get used to that.
Guilmon's ears perked upward as he sniffed the air, nostrils flaring wide. The snuffling noise sounded gunshot loud in the artificial silence. He nodded his agreement after a moment.
"Do you think they went to warn someone of our arrival?" Rika asked, pulling out her D-Power.
"I'm not certain," Renamon said, "but we should move quickly."
Renamon and Rika did their thing, where they communicated more in a single glance than a thousand conversations would have managed. Guilmon always asked why Takato looked ill whenever he tried emulating them. Renamon knelt, peering unmoved into the distance, while Rika turned away. Cottoning onto the plan, Takato jumpstarted their descent.
"Need you to guard for us, boy. I'll be helping Rika."
"M'kay," Guilmon said.
Rika followed Takato to the bottom of the valley. He snapped photos with his phone while Rika approached, kneeling beside the spire, D-Power in hand and lip bit in concentration. Guilmon paced around the space surrounding them much like a circling shark while Renamon remained a golden sentinel above them, forever vigilant.
A loading bar appeared on Rika's D-Power holoscreen as it began downloading information. Given how slowly the bar moved, the file size must be huge. It would take a couple minutes at least to finish. In the interim, Takato circled back around to not-obsessing over Cyberdramon. Really, he should stop worrying about it.
"Are you mad at me?" Takato blurted out.
Rika did a double take. "No." Then she rolled her eyes. "But I wish you'd told me sooner. I would've helped you, you absolute gogglehead."
"Oh." Takato stared at his shoes. "Sorry."
"It's fine." Rika stayed focused on the spire.
A small voice in the back of Takato's head wondered how often they would keep repeating they were fine until no one believed it anymore. He swiftly crushed the thought: everything was fine. Better than fine, even.
The pain came first.
It felt like his cheek had been both split in two and set on fire. Takato shouted, stunned, clutching his face. There was no blood, only agony. A low laugh, grating like crushed steel, echoed in the valley. Guilmon unleashed a distressed cry and charged toward his partner; his chest concaved, the blow's force driving him into the floor. Whatever attacked Guilmon remained unseen.
Everything happened too fast. Rika was still reacting to Takato's shout by the time Guilmon had been knocked down, turning on her heels with eyes wide, while Renamon appeared in front of her. Takato dimly heard them shouting, but the pain, oh the pain—black spots were clouding his vision as his knees crumpled from beneath him.
On the peripheral lay his D-power, having tumbled loose from his pocket. Takato reached for it, hand shaking, thoughts fixed: digivolve. No, not just digivolve, but biomerge. They needed Gallantmon; he needed Gallantmon. But nothing happened and nothing would happen, for their connection had been lost. He always suspected it but knew then, irrevocably, the truth.
Takato heard something.
Music was playing.
The haunting melody carried an acoustic quality akin to wind blowing through reeds. Warmth spread through Takato, the pain receding. A hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up to see Rika hovering over him, concern obvious. Renamon had become Kyubimon, currently nosing Guilmon's slumped form. He rose at geriatric speeds, befuddled, batwing ears wavering.
"What happened?" Takato asked. He touched his cheek, half-expecting to feel a deep gash, but there was only unbroken skin and coarse facial hair.
"You shouldn't be here," said a new, boyish voice. "It's too early for the concert."
Kyubimon whipped around, tails and fur along her spine standing upright, prepared for another fight. Once she turned, Takato could see her favoring her left foreleg, paw crooked at an ugly angle. But before their eyes it was healing, straightening itself out.
The voice belonged to a digimon Takato had never seen before: half-child and half-goat, it nimbly leapt from cube to cube toward them on cloven feet. Horns curled out of its pure white hair, and across its bare chest was a strange tattoo of wavy lines. Takato pointed his D-Power at the digimon.
"Aegiomon," he read aloud, "a champion level vaccine digimon."
"Hey, that's me! And this is Syrinx." Aegiomon held up an ornate panpipe and blew into it. The warm music returned, energy rushing through Takato in tandem. It sang out like the call of the clarion. He found his feet again and hurried toward Guilmon. His partner still seemed disoriented, flat of one claw rubbing his sternum over and over.
"You okay, boy?"
"Yeah."
Guilmon butted his head into Takato's stomach. There was a somberness to the gesture that left Takato stricken with unexplainable grief. He blinked back tears, glanced at the impenetrable sky, then over at Kyubimon. She had relaxed, a hint of wariness remaining in her narrowed gaze, regarding Takato with mournful commiseration.
Meanwhile, Rika began grilling Aegiomon, asking him a series of questions in rapid succession. Where were they, who had attacked them, why was Aegiomon there, did he know Jackpot Entertainment, were there any others and were they friendly or hostile? —and so on and so forth. The digimon kept his panpipes raised to his lips, mounting confusion more evident the more Rika spoke. When she paused, he lowered the instrument to let it dangle by his side. Silver glyphs were inscribed onto the front of each pipe, twisting together like the elongated, weeping feather-leaves of willow trees.
"You musn't linger long. They'll be back soon, and I won't be able to draw them away again," he said, ignoring her questions entirely.
Rika scowled.
"He's right." Kyubimon gingerly placed weight on her injured leg. It held. "Whatever that was, it would've killed us if given a few minutes more. We must leave. Now."
Rika glanced at her D-Power. The interruption had ruined the download, the information likely lost. Then she glanced at the strange spire, at Takato. The conflict was clear there. He shook his head, and her shoulders sagged. "Yeah, sure."
She swung onto Kyubimon's back. Takato ushered Guilmon along but paused. Aegiomon stood aside, observing them placidly.
"Thank you," Takato said. He bowed before taking Rika's extended hand, letting her pull him up.
Aegiomon cocked his head. Then he smiled. It was a strange smile, falling somewhere in the uncanny valley, a close approximation but still not quite human.
Rika lay sprawled out on her couch, beer bottle in one hand and TV remote in the other. She was sore everywhere, body transformed into one giant bruise. It was a curious ache because her physical body had not suffered any actual harm, more an echo of soreness that left her muscles tight. She had forgone pants, because it just seemed to be that type of night.
Rika was channel surfing, an instantly regrettable decision given everything on broadcast television was a special kind of terrible. But she had already committed and was too tipsy to stop now. The bold hiragana, loud noises, and overexaggerated reactions of the hosts and guests made it easier to drink more.
Night had fallen. Ryo still was not home; he must have been kept late again. Rika eventually found an almost tolerable quiz show, calling out answers on occasion and getting annoyed both when she got them right and when she got them wrong. The guests were miscellaneous celebrities Rika recognized in a distant manner—mostly from billboards and one through Rumiko.
He D-Power went off from the table. Rika stared at it. Then, sighing, she pushed herself upright and picked it up.
Renamon: How are you?
She felt a flicker of guilt for not touching base with Renamon sooner. But upon returning from EDEN, Henry had been so concerned and Takato so shaken everything else had fallen by the wayside.
Rika: Terrible. All the data corrupted. We're back to square one.
It had been years since Rika felt true terror. When Takato stumbled to his knees, for a split-second she feared the worst. (She still had the rare nightmare about Leomon's death and Jeri's subsequent suicidal depression.) That they survived seemed almost miraculous—and also, oddly enough, infuriating. Whatever they had fought, if you could even call it a fight, had been toying with them.
Renamon: What's the next move?
Rika: Not sure.
A guest won a prize and shrieked in response, jumping up and down. The quiz show cut to commercial break. Rika watched passively, lost in thought, then blinked when an advertisement for an idol group came on. Something triggered in the back of her mind.
Rika: Can you pull up those numbers you found on the Jackpot Entertainment network?
Without waiting for an answer, Rika wobbled to her feet, seeking out her laptop. It was perched on the counter and took ages to turn on. Tongue clicking with irritation, she flopped back onto the couch—almost knocking over her beer in the process—foot tapping staccato-quick against the floor.
It was at this point Ryo, sweat-stained and dirt-smudged, came home.
"Hey." She spared him a quick glance.
"Right back at you." Ryo yawned, kicking off his shoes and making a beeline for the bath.
A few minutes, search engine result, and cross reference later, Rika was grinning and fist pumping triumphantly. "Hell yeah."
Rika: It's a date for the upcoming TKC96 concert.
Renamon: Aegiomon mentioned a concert as well.
Rika sobered quickly. Chewing on her inner cheek, she texted Takato and Henry—they had already been strategizing in the group chat off and on, she just had zero inclination to join currently—and flicked through clips of the group's performances. There was even a bootleg of an entire concert uploaded to the Internet. Fumiko stood at the front, fluidly moving through the choreography. It was a simple dance with telegraphed moves, both because it was easier to sing and because it was easier for the public to learn.
The music was decent. Three note melody, catchy hook, nice harmonization from the girls. It was certainly a song of all time.
Renamon: Our assailant moved fast enough to be invisible. That sort of power is at least Ultimate level, if not Mega. We need to be able to biomerge.
Rika stared at the message for several minutes. She had no idea where to even begin to solve that particular problem; Henry made several suggestions upon their return, but she had lacked the mental bandwidth to properly absorb the information.
Rika: We'll figure something out.
Ryo ambled out of their bedroom, changed into a loosely tied yukata. "I'm starving. You want anything?"
She grunted, focused on research. Luckily, Ogawa had already sent them tickets. Serendipitous. The smell of curry soon filled the air and her stomach burbled, a reminder she had not eaten since morning.
"Oh hey, I know those idols." Ryo had turned from the stove, watching the laptop screen with an open and curious blue gaze. "There's a guy on the crew that's obsessed with them."
"Really?" Rika was successfully distracted from her task. She typed goodbye to Renamon, granting Ryo her undivided attention. He looked very attractive, hair still damp and mussed, and she longed to run her fingers through it.
"Mhmm. TKC96? They recently had one of those scam promotionals where they sell personal info alongside their CDs. He bought like seven of the same album to learn more about the girls."
"Really." Rika knew underhanded marketing tactics were utilized to keep the CD industry afloat in the age of digital file sharing, but she had never bothered to learn intimate details. "That's kind of pathetic."
"He keeps to himself, but he's a good worker." Ryo divvied the curry between two plates before walking toward her. "Just lonely, I think. Punctual, does his job, does it well, goes home. I only know about the CD thing because Shou sees him lurking around Shinjuku's Disk Union a lot. And, he supposedly has a bunch of memorabilia plastered inside his car."
"Huh." Rika accepted the curry, setting aside her laptop. Work could wait. "Thanks."
He shrugged, shoveling fried rice into his mouth. They were both hungry, it seemed. Ryo finished the remnants of her beer and said, "Like barflies, right? They're living other people's lives through stories."
"That was mine, you know." Rika wagged a chopstick at him.
"Chef tax." Ryo wiped away the traces of beer foam clinging to his upper lip and cleaned his plate fast enough to challenge even Calumon. Rika sensed an opening and swung her feet onto his lap, nudging one foot insistently against his arm. He laughed. "You're so needy."
"I feel like I got run over by a truck."
"Well, at least you weren't sucked into another world. Silver linings. Or, well. Close enough." Ryo hummed, gently rubbing small circles into her calf. "Oooh, I know this one"—the quiz show had returned from another commercial break—"Taishi Shoutoko's oldest wooden facility is Houryuuji."
Immense love for her boyfriend struck her in that moment, warm and slick like the sucked seed of a fruit tree. It was always there if not always acknowledged—stitched beneath the surface of her skin in a delicate web of intricate embroidery, unseen but there to be stroked. Rika relaxed, putting her plate down, tensions draining away to the rhythm of his fingers. "Will you be coming home late for the rest of the week?"
"I sure as hell hope not. But… maybe. They keep piling add-ons to the project," Ryo admitted. He worked his way up to her foot, massaging the arch of her sole with the heel of his palm. "How's the case going?"
Rika had sunk deeper into the couch, content. Her eyes now fluttered open, and she hesitated. "It's been more complicated than I first thought."
"How so?" Ryo looked like he was only half-listening. He adjusted his grip on her leg and pressed a butterfly kiss against the fluted area of skin stretched thin over ankle bone, other hand splaying in five points high up her thigh.
The resultant tingles were pleasant and the temptation to continue was strong, but Takato's pleading face kept popping up in her mind's eye: I want to make sure Cyberdramon's okay. A real libido killer, that. Ryo did not strictly need to be kept in the loop (almost never wanted to be kept in the loop, in fact) but at the same time: if it had involved her partner, she would have wanted to know. Estranged or not.
Fuck.
Already lamenting the decision, Rika said, "Weird stuff's been happening in the Digital World in conjunction with the case. The timing is suspicious. And… there was a Cyberdramon sighting."
Ryo stilled. Slowly, he set her foot down.
"Where?"
"Well, that's the thing. We heard secondhand, so we don't know, exactly, except not the Digital World itself. But we think EDEN."
He stood abruptly, collecting their plates, and headed into the kitchen. The sound of rushing water overlapped with melodramatic yells from the television. Rika turned it off and sat up, braced against the cushion as she twisted to watch him.
"Ryo—"
"Has he hurt anyone?" Ryo asked, scrubbing hard at a piece of rice stubbornly stuck to the ceramic.
"I don't think so. Violent metal dragon men tend to attract notice," Rika said. "Look, forget it. It's not a big deal."
Ryo was silent. He placed the plates on the rack to dry, then looked over at the Renamon portrait hung opposite him. He asked:
"Am I nothing more than the hole other people fall through?"
She wanted to reach out to cradle his cheek in the cusp of her palm, shift the pain to a realm somewhere beyond them. "Ryo…"
He cut her off with a raised, trembling hand. There was a desperate devastation on his face that broke her heart all over again. Rika opened then closed her mouth. She now regretted accepting a cigarette from Kenta. The urge to smoke, to lose herself to herself, welled up from deep within the nicotine-addicted aspect of her soul.
Ryo walked into the bedroom. The door slid shut behind him with the finality of a tolling bell.
Chapter 4: a blinding cast in half-shadow
Chapter Text
Pink-dawn light fell upon the commercial district of Shinjuku. The bakery was shuttered, but silhouettes of movements could be seen within while prep for the morning rush carried on inside. A faint, sweet smell of yeast tinged with cinnamon and chocolate lingered around the entrance. Outside, just beyond the display window, Henry and Jeri stood in quiet contemplation.
They breathed together. It was slow, steady—the pattern of nature reflected through the physical human body. That which was eternally true, eternally real, alluded to via the measured gestures they made in unison.
A bright jingle disturbed the tranquility. Takehiro poked his head out the bakery, rush of savory scents flooding out in his wake, and watched them curiously. Henry turned first to look at him; Jeri was a beat slower, stirring as if woken from a dream.
"Did we go over?" Henry asked.
"Oh, no, sorry. Just wanted to check on you." Takehiro hefted a worn cardboard box. "Had to throw some stuff out anyway."
A skeptical 'ha!' could be heard from deeper in the bakery. Takehiro reddened.
Henry smiled. "You can always join if you want, you know."
"No, no, no. I'd probably pull something." Takehiro laughed, readjusting his grip on the box and sidling out the door around back. "But thank you, Henry. I appreciate it."
Henry appreciated these sessions too. He enjoyed the Matsuki's company, and more importantly, the exercises helped maintain a sense of calmness and relaxation after the events of the past few days.
"Do you need anything?" Jeri asked.
She was more alert now, the dreaminess fading from her dark gaze. Takehiro shook his head, apologized again, vanished from view. Other shopkeepers were beginning to stir. The lights in their shops turned on, electric gold mingling with the naturalistic tawny of dawn.
Henry checked his phone for time. "We're almost done, anyway. How're you feeling?"
"Not bad. A little stupid sometimes, though, especially when we do this where anyone can see. Like people might look at us and just know I'm screwing up," Jeri admitted, sheepish.
"The most important part is that you practice every day. Whether it's wrong or not doesn't matter," Henry said. "It's not a competition."
"Easy for you to say." Jeri looked put out.
"Sorry."
"I'm just teasing you, Henry." She giggled. A brief pause followed. "It's hard to shut it all off, too. My thoughts are so loud sometimes."
Henry knew exactly what Jeri meant. He said:
"When meditation is mastered,
The mind is unwavering like the
Flame of a lamp in a windless place.
In the still mind,
In the depths of meditation,
The Self reveals itself.
Beholding the Self
By means of the Self,
An aspirant knows the
Joy and peace of complete fulfillment.
Having attained that
Abiding joy beyond the senses,
Revealed in the stilled mind,
He never swerves from the eternal truth."
"Is that from the Dao De Jing?" Jeri asked.
"The Bhagavad Gita, actually."
"It's nice."
Henry liked the weight and texture words from ancient scriptures carried with them. They were an anchor, a means of connection to something genuine, authentic, in a world rife with artifice. Inexplicable melancholia suddenly struck him.
"You know," Henry began, "if you—"
Mei bustled out the bakery carrying fresh baked roll cakes and water. She offered the refreshments to Henry and Jeri. "Ten more minutes, then I'll need your help with inventory."
"Yes, ma'am," Jeri said.
Henry wasn't hungry but accepted the food without complaint. It tasted wonderful, same as always. The warmth spread from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his ears and toes. Mood improved, Henry stifled a yawn. Whatever half-formed notion he had planned on saying slipped away, forgotten. Mei nodded curtly at both of them before, in a whirl of her dough-encrusted apron, striding back inside.
"I suppose it's too much to expect Takato's up yet, huh?"
Jeri gave him an odd look. "No, he left awhile ago. Couldn't sleep at all. I'm surprised he didn't tell you."
Henry was surprised, too. They had talked late into the night about the strange attack, and Takato made no mention of any plans before meeting at the office. Judging by Jeri's reaction, he had not told her anything about what transpired either. Henry filed that away for later—but really, it was none of his business.
It occurred to Henry, suddenly, that this visit could have easily gone very differently. His friends could have been seriously injured yesterday, or worse. Panic flitted on the edges of his tai chi-induced calm. If anything happened to Rika or Takato, it would be all his fault. Henry re-collected his composure.
"We've been swamped recently. A lot happening at once. You know, there's an opening at the agency…"
Jeri was shaking her head. "Thanks, Henry, but Rika already suggested it a while back. I don't think—I've left that behind me, and I'm at peace with it. Why not ask Suzie? When we meet, the receptionist job is all she ever talks about."
If either Rika or Takato had mentioned the subject, Henry probably would have shut down the conversation. But he felt comfortable confiding in Jeri. She was easy to talk to about most matters.
"Suzie doesn't listen," he complained, "she respects me about as much now as she did when she was six years old."
Jeri went quiet, mulling over the response. "I think you should give her a chance. She might surprise you."
Henry wanted to argue. He opened then closed his mouth, frowning. After a moment, he sighed heavily, frown transitioning into a rueful smile.
"Maybe."
Shibuya always stoked Takato's anxiety. He could never quite pinpoint why, but there was a claustrophobia to it that other districts lacked in comparison. Maybe Akihabara came close, but tourists rarely bothered Takato much. (This was not an opinion Henry and especially Rika shared—but Takato had grown up in a household where tourism benefited them immensely, and had fond memories of foreigners attempting to speak Japanese in clumsy, stilted phrases while bearing earnest expressions.)
It was easy to locate the half-finished Kamishiro Enterprises building. Scaffolding decorated the structure like cobwebs on a skeleton, plastic packaging scattered around the perimeter like shed skin. A golden sigil with EDEN romanized had been affixed at the top of the skyscraper, bearing down upon everyone.
Takato stifled a yawn, hunched over his coffee cup. He blew on the lid and watched steam spiral out to mingle with the chill autumnal air. Workers were already gathered just outside the building, in a semicircle, their heads bowed. Ryo had explained it once as respect and gratitude for the day before them, in addition to a form of solidarity. They wore clean white jumpsuits with their safety glasses and hard helmets tucked under their arms.
Speaking of Ryo, Takato caught sight of him on the group's cusp. Takato waited until they finished their early morning ritual, more and more nervous the longer it took. Crap, this was a mistake. He shouldn't be here.
Takato cleared his throat then chanced a tiny wave. Ryo glanced over at him. A curious thing happened, next. Rika had once described Ryo as someone capable of flipping a switch and becoming a different person entirely. His face visibly shuttered before a brilliant smile spread across it, a smile that didn't quite reach the eyes. He murmured a few words to his coworkers before approaching Takato.
"Mr. Matsuki," Ryo said, polite and charming as ever, "It's good to see you again."
Takato fought the strong urge to look around for his father. The other workers were staring at him curiously. One whispered something to another, who smirked in response. Takato rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed. "Oh, uh, just Takato's fine. No need to be so formal."
"Of course. How can I help?"
"I guess I just… um… have you heard anything from Cyberdramon?" Takato asked, words tumbling out faster and faster with each progressing beat, as though it would be easier the sooner they escaped his lips. "I-I've been looking for him and we sorta found a lead the other day, and also it might tie in with other weird stuff going on, so… sorry."
He finished with an apologetic shrug, fighting the urge to descend into full-scale flail.
"Yeah, Rika mentioned it last night."
"She did?" Takato blinked. "I mean, cool, that's great! Uh—did you, then?"
The other construction workers had lost interest in the conversation and were beginning to set up for the day. Measurements, tools, door frames and walls were transported with the order and efficiency of time-ingrained routine.
"No, sorry. I haven't heard anything."
"Okay." Takato felt stupid. He wasn't quite sure where to go from here. "Well, I mean, do you have any ideas where Cyberdramon might've gone?"
"You know I haven't contacted the Digital World since it closed, Takato." Ryo's words remained pleasant, but there now lingered an edge beneath them.
"But why?" Takato's own boldness shocked him. He breathed in, a sharp intake, as if to suck the question back within himself.
Ryo seemed caught off guard as well. The mask faltered, slipped—revealing someone tired and worn down by life—before the smiling visage returned. It happened quickly enough Takato wondered if he only imagined the reaction.
"I'm sorry—"
"No, don't be," Ryo said, "I'm glad you asked. Look, it's like this: I gave so much to Cyberdramon, to digimon in general, things I'm never getting back. When I first lost him, back—back then, I was devastated. But then I had this realization that I was… free."
"I don't understand."
It made no sense. Takato's partnership with Guilmon had paved the way to freedom. Before that there had been nothing more than a sense of going through the motions, set along a path laid down long before he had been born.
"It's complicated. We were complicated." Ryo turned somewhat misty eyed. "I thought I was being heroic, but mostly I was just an insufferable kid stuck in a situation I didn't understand. I don't want to go back to that. Ever. It's just another form of running away, you know. Heroism. Or, at least, the kind I thought I had. It wasn't real. You have to learn how to live in the world eventually. I like my life as it is, I like my job. It's… tactile."
He bent down and picked up loose concrete debris, inspecting it. "It's like I'm putting a piece of myself into the city. Even if people don't realize it, or f-forget, it's still there. I get to build things up instead of tear them down."
They both fell silent. In the background, one of the workers dropped a plank of plaster, the clatter against pavement loud in the morning quiet. Ryo tensed, jaw locked, a muscle twitching in his cheek. A beat passed. The workers laughed and jostled each other, picking the plaster back up with minimal fuss. Ryo relaxed, expression shifting to wry amusement.
Someone, likely a supervisor given their authoritative stride, called for Ryo to hurry. Ryo waved back, responding with assurances. It jolted Takato out of his own melancholic reverie.
"Well, you don't have to, you know. That's why we're here," Takato said. "If you hear anything, promise you'll let me or Rika know. We can take care of it from there."
Ryo regarded him impassively, thoughts impenetrable. It was like peering upon the surface of an opaque pond, clouded by stirred silt.
Whenever Rika felt depressed, she would put on her headphones and visit the gym. The endorphin high always helped fend off intrusive thoughts.
Sometimes she even saw Riley there; they had met unplanned several years back, Riley in the mood to rant after dumping Yamaki for the nth time. Master from a young age at the art of listening to jilted women, Rika had nodded along and uttered sympathetic noises in all the right places. On that, a professional friendship of sorts was born. If they chanced across each other at the gym, they would work out together and exchange anecdotes about their lives that hinted at private sadness while never crossing the boundaries into over-sharing. Riley wasn't there today, however, so Rika finished her reps alone, cleaned up and changed, and walked into the agency late.
The door opened, Takato and Henry seated waiting alongside—
Rika blinked. She was sucking on a piece of hard candy picked up on the way in. She found it helped when the nicotine cravings hit hard, almost better than a patch in some ways. The candy rolled around behind her molars, pressing against the inside of her cheek, almost lodging in her throat due to surprise.
"Rika! It's so good to see you!" Suzie squealed, throwing her arms around the other woman. Rika awkwardly patted her on the back, maneuvering to quizzically stare over at Henry. He shrugged, resigned. The man was useless to her.
"It's good to see you too, Suzie."
This was true; Rika liked Suzie. They had never been close, but the younger girl had an innate charisma and warmth that made spending time with her memorable even in small doses. And Suzie had always seemed beholden to Rika for keeping a watchful eye out those many, many years ago. When pressed about it, though, Suzie would deny the suggestion.
"Your newest secretary, reporting for duty." Suzie drew back, relinquishing Rika from her death grip, and saluted cheekily.
"It's a temporary situation," Henry said.
Rika rolled her eyes.
"Technically our only secretary." Takato chuckled. He was rather pale, hair more a mess than usual, clinging to a cup of coffee like it was a lifeline. Rika wondered if he had gotten much sleep.
"Which also, technically, makes me your best secretary!" Suzie puffed out her chest.
"Please don't make me regret this," Henry said.
"Stop being such a downer, Henwwy." Suzie put on an exaggerated affectation, bounding over to the desk buckling under untouched paperwork. She poked around, flicking through a few leaflets without reading them, and tutted. "You're such a clean freak at home, what's all this about?"
"I've been busy," Henry said, defensive. Rika and Takato just observed the verbal sparring match before them. Judging by Takato's expression, the amusement was mutual. "But, never mind that. Suzie'll hold down the fort while we're in the Digital World. You can attend your interview without any issue."
"Sweet. Let's get started then. Time is money and all that." Rika rolled the hard candy to the opposite side of her mouth. The boys nodded their agreement.
"You'll be careful, right?" Suzie asked, frowning. She still stood behind the desk, some of the brilliant, excitable energy fading the further the conversation progressed. "You only just got released from the hospital."
Rika was a little worried about Takato too, if she was honest. But whatever had happened yesterday didn't seem to be bothering him. He mostly just looked tired—but then again, they had all looked tired recently.
"Of course. I have some safety precautions in place. Besides, we're going to see Azulongmon—can't get much safer than the presence of a digimon Sovereign."
"Right." Suzie looked unconvinced. But the uncertainty faded, replaced by another brilliant grin. "I'll have everything here spick and span, count on it!"
Takato blanched. "Try not to change things up too much. I've adapted to the chaos. I was born in it, molded by it."
He laughed at his own joke, which brought a twitch to Rika's lips.
"I won't let her go too crazy," Rika promised. Suzie pouted.
"Fiiiine, whatever."
After Takato and Henry left, Rika spent the first couple minutes letting Suzie putter about and bombard her with questions. The responses were terse and absentminded, Rika lost in thought about the events of the previous day. Maybe she should e-mail Ryo something clever by way of a proxy apology.
"Oh, enough about the boring shit. Tell me everything that's happened recently! I swear, you never answer my texts." Suzie was pouting.
"Ah, sorry." Rika forced herself to focus. She moved to help Suzie with the paperwork, sorting it into useful and outdated categories. "I don't often have anything to say."
"Jeri never leaves me on read. Even if it's just a cute cat gif, she still responds."
"I'll keep that in mind next time," Rika said dryly.
The mundane nature of slowing down and cleaning up the office space was more therapeutic than Rika expected. Suzie could chatter about anything and everything, fluttering around like a tiny bird, but she had the same detail-oriented knack as Henry for management and organization. Just watching her dart everywhere made Rika tired.
"Whenever I ask Lopmon how things are in the Digital World, she says it's good as can be expected. Is that true?"
The question caught Rika off guard. She glanced up, sheaf of paper held in a loose grip. The remnants of the hard candy dissolved on her tongue. Suzie was staring from across the room, expression worried.
Rika hesitated. "It is what it is, for the most part."
Suzie tilted her head. Then she laughed, bright and warm. "Life really be like that, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Rika smiled back. She had a sneaking suspicion she would enjoy having Suzie around.
The data stream deposited them in Azulongmon's domain. It wasn't what Takato expected, although if honest, he hadn't quite known what to expect. They had never been invited here before now.
They stood on a boat in the middle of a lake, the water dark purple with flashes of electricity running through its currents. Leather wings jutted out either side of the boat's bow, twisting and contorting around its length. Strange runes glowed purple and blue along the fluted bone railing. A crystal filigree umbrella stood in the boat's center, canopy shaded with the tide of a trillion tomorrows.
The boat rocked gently beneath their feet. Takato could see the encircling shoreline, leafbare trees frozen as though paused in the motion of waving goodbye. Guilmon crouched beside the railing and stared at his reflection in the water below.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Henry asked.
"Hey! I put in the address Mr. Moustache himself sent us!" Terriermon's ears ballooned and he puffed out his cheeks. He bore a curious resemblance to Suzie, then. "Unbelievable. I do everything right and still take the blame."
"Calm down, I was just checking."
"This place is cool," Takato said, intrigued despite the unease pricking his skin.
Guilmon jumped overboard. The others shouted in surprise, Takato loudest of all, but Guilmon didn't sink. The water's surface tension held, Guilmon able to stand before them atop the lake. He grinned, fangs bright white in a dark red maw.
"Look at me, I'm walking on water," Guilmon said, laughing.
"You nearly gave me a heart attack, boy," Takato complained. The toothy gin faded, became conciliatory, and Takato felt a stab of guilt. "That's my bad. Let me see…"
He gingerly crossed one leg over the bow, touching the water with a tentative toe. It soaked through almost immediately, a sharp shock numbing his extremities. Takato jerked back with a yelp.
"You alright?" Henry asked, concerned.
"Oh, just great. I love a little electric shock therapy in the morning…" Takato groused. These past few days had been less than stellar.
"It needs to be a leap of faith, Takato," Guilmon said. His eyes held a solemn gleam.
Takato stared. Henry started to say something, but Takato ignored him, choosing instead to jump overboard without thinking about it further. His feet hit water hard and firm like concrete. Takato straightened, brushing nonexistent dust off his pants, then bowed with a theatrical flourish.
"Whaddya want, applause or something?" Terriermon sounded unimpressed. Takato deflated slightly.
"Knock it off." Henry frowned and shaded his eyes. "Is it getting darker?"
It was.
Storm clouds were gathering overhead. Lights in the water came alive. They wriggled free of the current and rose upward while purple rain fell slantwise upon them. The lights resembled electric will-o-wisps. A tingle spread from the tip of Takato's ears and nose to cover the entirety of his face. He held out a hand and saw their souls flash there in particles of purple-gold.
Guilmon snarled.
A pale shade hurtled from the shore toward them. The movements were unsettling, unnatural; aerodynamic yet shuddering, as though it longed to shatter inward and scatter to every cardinal direction simultaneously. Takato tried scanning it with his D-Power:
NO DATA
Malevolence radiated from the creature, spiraling out in twisted fractals, a malevolence ancient and unknowable in its depth—a malevolence that stemmed from the misery of stars gone supernova.
Peculiar terror struck Takato, the sort he had not experienced
since
(he was transfixed)
"Oi! Henry! Takato! HENRY!" Terriermon bellowed.
Henry jerked to attention, eyes snapping open almost as if freed from a nightmare. "Yes, yes, go."
"About damn time!"
Terriermon jumped off Henry's shoulder, ears billowing outward. Light engulfed the digimon as he floated above them, face twisting into a grimace. Terriermon's skin ripped away to reveal seething layers of code underneath. Gargomon fell from the sky, gatling arm extended, and struck the oncoming monster upon collision.
An unearthly shriek echoed over the lake. The monster rippled; the water rippled too. Takato was jolted out of his trance and stumbled back, falling into the boat.
"G-Guilmon!"
"On it." And with that measured reassurance, Guilmon became Growlmon. He moved with surprising grace for such a large digimon, like a waterfall unspooling down a ridge.
The cephalopod-shaped monsters' maw parted, revealing unfurled tentacles. They wrapped around Gargomon's arm and crawled up it, grotesque in their writhing. Gargomon shouted and fired a round of bullets in response, but if they affected the monster, it showed no external sign of pain.
Growlmon flanked it, white mane flowing freely, whipped tail following like an angry red echo. The spikes on his elbows glowed effervescent and he drove them into the monster's silvery-black hide. Another unearthly shriek sounded, forcing Growlmon to stumble back, claws clapped over ears.
The monster's stranglehold on Gargomon's arm tightened. With a corkscrewing jerk, it dragged him below the surface of the lake. Henry let out a strange noise; Growlmon immediately dove in after. The water swallowed them whole with a soft burble.
Stillness pervaded.
"I need to help him." Henry ripped off his jacket and stepped toward the prow.
"Henry, wait." Takato grabbed Henry by the arm. "It's dangerous. We should…"
Henry turned fast, face dark—for a split second, Takato thought Henry might strike him. For a split second, Takato was afraid.
Figures exploded out of the water. Growlmon had the monster in an awkward chokehold, spikes driven deep into its flesh. A wild look haunted Gargomon as he propelled himself backward, fractal tattoos turning his metal arm the same silver-speckled color as the monster. Takato suddenly realized information was showing on his D-Power. There was only one word, repeated over and over again:
EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER EATER
The lake water turned to glass; lightning arced across the sullen sky. Growlmon's head jerked up, then he released the monster and scrambled away. A bolt of electricity fell, striking it and evaporating it instantly. The boat groaned under Takato and Henry's feet, umbrella spinning like a top and leather wings stretching free as it drifted upward into the sky.
Azlungmon descended from a gap in the storm clouds to meet them. Holy light radiated from the Sovereign's delicate white-blue fur, and hair from his beard descended to offer Gargomon and Growlmon a lift. Takato had forgotten Azulongmon's massive size; even Growlmon was dwarfed by his presence.
"What brings you to my domain?" Azulonmon's deep voice boomed like thunder. It set Takato's teeth ajar, and the meaning took a moment to sink in.
Henry recovered first. "You're the one who asked for us."
Azulongmon bore down upon them, coiled body tightening as though prepared to spring. Electricity crackled along the length of his jagged horn. A familiar figure popped out of his beard, waving her arms around in pacification.
"Forgive me, oh mighty Sovereign, for I was the one who requested their audience in your guise! The deception pained me, but I thought it best given the circumstances!" Lopmon said.
She glanced at Gargomon, a bit worried, but he was silent, the mechanisms in his arms revolving slowly in a series of click, click, clicks as he clung to Azulongmon's beard. Growlmon, however, waved at her. Lopmon waved back with a floppy brown and pink ear.
"What's going on?" Takato blurted out.
Lying seemed almost antithetical to Lopmon's character, so what could have driven her to such lengths? Henry crossed his arms. There still lingered a shadow upon his face.
"Very well," Azulongmon said after brief consideration, "what's done is done. I have striven to conceal the true state of the Digital World from you all since your return."
"But why?" Takato asked, bewildered.
The sky darkened further; lightning grumbled around them; Azulogmon loomed enormous.
"Because you abandoned us! We presented you our gifts and our trust, and we were betrayed in return! The D-Reaper might have vanished from your world with nary a trace left behind, but we were not so lucky. Powers stolen, territories desecrated, order shattered with no one left to refashion the pieces!" Azulongmon's eyes flashed with barely contained fury.
Growlmon and Lopmon suddenly looked uncomfortable.
Takato quailed under the enraged stare, lanced by guilt. "There was nothing we could do, our one chance—the portal was walled off…"
"Excuses," Azulongmon growled, visibly seething. The sky around them turned even more sullen.
"Where are the other Sovereigns?" Henry asked suddenly.
Lopmon gasped. Azulongmon reared back as though struck, almost knocking his passengers loose in the process. The boat trembled in a surge of turbulence.
"Oi! Watch it!" Gargomon complained, snapped out of his malaise. He was ignored.
"They are gone. What we lost, what we sacrificed—you will never understand." But Azulongmon's hard edge had vanished, replaced by morose sadness. "I had no choice. It may well have been that this form was never recovered otherwise…"
Takato thought he might be sick. Surely not, surely...
Henry's expression remained blank.
"What's done is done, right?" he asked, retort drenched in caustic sarcasm. "If you have information to share with us, you should share it. I can't change the past, but I'll do what I can now that I'm here."
Azulongmon considered Henry. At last:
"New groups of powerful digimon have risen and fallen in the time you were gone. I have maintained order to the best of my ability, but I am alone now, and the Digital World has grown massive indeed. One of them presented a consistent challenge: the Kowloon Co. They are talented builders, helping reconstruct and expand much of the destroyed Digital World. They used their knowledge to lure in desperate digimon and download their data. It allowed them to swiftly reach Mega. They are dangerous, unpredictable. And they have disappeared."
Takato was still reeling from the revelation that Zhuqiaoumon was dead. Why hadn't he ever thought to check on the Sovereign? He had been so wrapped up in Cyberdramon and the Tamers' digimon, it never even occurred to him there might be other aspects of the Digital World amiss.
Careless. Takato had been careless.
Henry nodded. "I see. I have a pretty good idea where they went. And that… thing, that attacked us?"
"It is corruption," Azulongmon said. He now seemed uneasy, shifting, lithe body undulating in slow rolling waves. "It touches not the digimon but destroys that handled by old gods: human and digignome both."
"Alright. One other thing. We can't biomerge anymore, it seems. Do you know why that might be?"
Azulongmon started. He seemed surprised. "I know not. There is nothing here to prevent you. The catalyst endures."
Henry and Azulongmon stared at each other. They had reached an understanding, an epiphany beyond Takato's ability to grasp. Takato felt as though he was steadily falling behind, left in the dust by those around him, and could not stifle the tinge of resentment.
Mr. Yoshimoto lived in a small, cute apartment in a small, cute suburb of Shinjuku. It was not far from where Takato lived, actually. When Rika knocked on the door, she was greeted by a dumpy older man with long whiskers and deep-set eyes.
"You must be Rumiko's girl. You look a lot like her," Mr. Yoshimoto said. Rika bowed politely. "Ah, that's not necessary. Come in, come in."
Inside the apartment was modern and neat, filled with knicknacks organized in meticulous fashion. Even so, there was something seedy about it, a hint of not-quite-right lurking beneath the surface. Record labels of various girl groups and models decorated the walls. They all huddled around Mr. Yoshimoto in various stages of his life, some of the pictures in black and white or grainy low definition—it was like viewing time capsules of both man and technology itself.
"Saké?" Daiki asked.
Rika paused, uncertain, then nodded. "Thank you."
"How is Ms. Rumiko, anyway? A good girl, rather the type to use people though, I daresay. Then again, to make it in the industry, that's almost a necessity."
Mr. Yoshimoto busied himself at the stove, heating up water to dip the saké in. Rika didn't respond right away, somewhat taken aback by the man's bluntness. He continued speaking, distracting her from deciding whether to be offended or not.
"So, how can I help you?"
Rika let the original comment pass. "I was hoping you might know something about the idol group TKC96. I'm helping them with a delicate issue."
"TKC96? That's an idol group." Mr. Yoshimoto scowled, demeanor souring. "I don't work with idols, not anymore."
"I thought you were retired."
"You know what I mean." Mr. Yoshimoto harrumphed. "The most artless form of entertainment to ever exist—no, not even entertainment! It's manipulation, subjugation, commodification: objectifying for both the idol and the audience."
"You feel strongly about this."
"Because it's true!" Mr. Yoshimoto looked agitated, pulling out a box of cigarettes. He lit up, ire fading, and spared Rika a sly glance. "You want one, Miss?"
Rika shook her head, tight-lipped. Mr. Yoshimoto turned smugly knowing, briefly, as though he had figured her out in that split second of weakness—as though he knew her better than she knew herself. Rika resented him for it, for stoking the nagging insecurity that he might be right. That deep down, she was still the same girl that used others the way junkies used drugs.
Mr. Yoshimoto continued:
"Art is meant to straddle the line between fact and fiction. A celebration and understanding of life through creativity. But idols instead straddle the line between fact and celebrity. 'Intentionally engineered intimacy.' Bah." He exhaled a plume of smoke, took the saké out of the heated water. "They are pre-fab gods, is what they are, manufactured to be worshiped in a society of spectacle. Make no mistake about that. They create nothing and sell everything; everything is crafted for them by their production companies to fetishize the consumer."
They kneeled at the dinner table and Mr. Yoshimoto poured out the warmed saké for them both. Rika took a sip, resigned to listening to him wax poetic about the issue. There was truth to what he was saying—part of her had always been aware of it, even if it had gone unacknowledged and with far less melodramatics—but it was hard to care about a rather banal issue given everything wrong with the world currently.
"Hiroshi Aoyaga once said, ahh, what was it?" Mr. Yoshimoto checked his phone, a light flush creeping up his neck. "Right: Idol fans and audiences enjoy creating their own epoch-making stories as they relate themselves to their idols. The mass media functions here as by-standers that direct people's interest toward preferred readings of the time."
He stared at Rika expectantly, as though she should be wowed by the information.
"I've seen Perfect Blue, I think I get it."
The gap between what was real and what was performance had grown difficult to distinguish in the age of digital media. Everyone acted, put on fronts, in some capacity within their day-to-day life, but a camera exacerbated the tendency into hyperreality.
"You really are Rumiko's daughter," Mr. Yoshimoto said, in a tone that could have been either a compliment or an insult or both. "But yes. The act of creating narratives is intimately bound with the enhancement of specific forms of desire."
There was something reprehensible to Rika about a person profiting off an industry, retiring, then decrying it in its entirety. She stared at the pictures of smiling idols surrounding Mr. Yoshimoto. Parasitic, that was the word. His self-righteousness felt parasitic. He could take credit for all the good, turn a blind eye to the corruption while in the midst of it, and spite it from the comfort of a home bought off the profits of women.
"Mr. Yoshimoto, I appreciate the sociology lesson, but I'm here to discuss TKC96 specifically, not issues with the idol industry itself. Unfortunate as they are, there's not much I can do about them."
"Of course, of course. I understand. Forgive an old man, it's not often I have an attentive audience." Mr. Yoshimoto cleared his throat. "TKC96… they're under Jackpot, yes?"
"Correct."
Mr. Yoshimoto tapped his cigarette in the ashtray, letting the glowing amber-gray flecks tumble loose. The smoke made it hard for Rika to concentrate, so she busied herself by pouring more saké. "You're familiar with the concept of Jimusho?"
"Vaguely. They're the managers for idols."
"Management company. The men behind the curtain; the Wizards of Oz." Mr. Yoshimoto frowned. "If the record company is the father, they are the mother. They organize and plan everything, dole out subsidiaries and make the final decision about which talents get what project. Most Jimusho are privately owned and obfuscate financial transactions, which means they have a great deal of power—the most dangerous form, the unseen kind. They're some of the most powerful men in Japan.
"Jackpot is a smaller company, but their idols have been rapidly rising up the charts. Usually small companies will work behind the scenes within a larger companies' network, beholden to them via cash payouts and music rights agreements. My understanding is that Jackpot, until recently, was affiliated with Burning Productions, but they broke away after a change in ownership. Jun Hideyoki. No public photos of him exist, but supposedly he's young and ambitious with ties to Kamishiro Enterprises."
Rika exhaled sharply. They had assumed a connection, but to hear it confirmed was still bracing. She set down her saké and took a moment to compose herself. "I see."
"Apparently want to revolutionize the world." Mr. Yoshimoto snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it. Nothing ever really changes, you know. Just takes on new forms. When you've seen as much as I have, you'll come to recognize that."
They sat in the office, silent, digesting the information each uncovered. Suzie had been sent home hours earlier, because Henry wanted her to have no part in this venture. The setting sun cast long shadows on the reorganized room. He fought the urge to take everything apart and remake it in its former image.
"We need to go to that concert," Rika said. "I bet you anything we'll find a way to interface with EDEN."
Henry could feel a headache coming on. He rubbed his temples. "Are we sure that—you know, Burning Productions—isn't involved instead, somehow? I doubt they'd be happy if Jackpot really broke away."
He kept searching for other possibilities, even as the other possibilities evaporated and left him with the only option, viewed through a looking glass darkly. Rika tilted her head, purple gaze clouded.
"Maybe. But we still need to investigate. This is something only we can handle properly."
"You're right," Henry said, resigned. "Mr. Ogawa sent us tickets."
"So, we already have an in?" Takato asked.
Henry nodded.
"I have Miss Hada's number as well. She could probably get me there early, before the concert starts, so I can poke around." Rika was staring at her D-Power, reading whatever Renamon had sent her.
Henry had messaged Terriermon a few times upon returning from the Digital World, but all the responses had been glib obfuscations. Whatever that Eater creature had done to him wasn't manifesting physically—not even in scans at the DigiLab. But still Henry worried.
"And we're all in agreement that the three of us need to be available for this?" Takato asked.
"Yes." The answer came out harsher than intended. Henry swallowed and softened. "Yes. Any other cases are lower priority."
A somber moment passed between them. Henry stared out the window at the people walking home from work or school. He wondered what it was like to be them—did they feel overwhelmed, as he often did, by their personal anxieties? Or was it easier for everyone else and he had missed that specific life hack.
"You know what this means, right?" Takato broke the silence first. Good humor crept into his tone, warming the office space. Henry needed a second to understand Takato's implication.
"Oh, hell no," Rika said, even as a reluctant smile broke across her face.
"You don't get to back out now! I was promised karaoke for three-man missions!" Takato grinned, triumphant. "It's important and necessary to ensure success! For good luck and improved camaraderie! I've been practicing Hitoto Yo just for this moment!"
"You're such a gogglehead," Rika said, affectionate.
Henry laughed, unable to help it. He was grateful to have had Takato as a lifelong friend, more now than perhaps ever before. Everything was too serious when it was just Henry, or even Henry and Rika. Joy unto others was perhaps Takato's greatest gift.
"Yeah, let's go," Henry said. "Let's do this together."
Chapter Text
Moonlight flooded the streets of Shinjuku. It illuminated concrete and greenery alike in a bone-bleached glow; shone on the shuttered faces of houses while their inhabitants slept through the depths of this twilight hour. Henry was not one such inhabitant—instead, he staggered drunkenly through the streets, listing hard against Takato in an attempt to maintain equilibrium.
Rika managed to remain upright, but the feat seemingly required all her concentration, face flushed almost the same shade as her hair. Takato, meanwhile, was singing. It was a tone-deaf caterwaul, and quite possibly the funniest noise Henry had ever heard. The alcohol from their karaoke session pumped hard and fast through his veins, leaving him lightheaded and floating on silk-soft clouds.
"You… you—dying cats sound more musical, Ta-ka-to," Henry managed to gasp out. Takato stopped singing.
"Excuse me? I-I'll have you know I'm, I'm… uh… great! The greatest! Just ask my mom! Or, maybe not her." Takato broke down into giggles, which triggered further laughter from Henry.
"Why are you two the way you are?" Rika asked, swaying, even as a bright smile lit up her face. Her smile had lost its usual jagged edge, devoid of any sarcasm or cynicism or deprecation. Sincere, that was the word; her smile was sincere.
They passed an intersection. Henry squinted at the street sign and said, "I think… we took a wrong turn. My apartment is not, uh, here."
The residential, suburban surroundings confirmed this statement.
"Brilliant deduction. Our generational genius, everyone," Rika said.
"People who unironically sing Ue o Muite Arukou shouldn't throw glass houses." Henry's retort was ruined somewhat by the mixed metaphor and slurred words. Rika blushed scarlet anyway.
"Eh, ehh, ehhh—relaaaaax. Moumentai! Moumentai!" Takato shouted. "Also, what's this? What're you saying? Ue o Muite Arukou is a perfect song, almost as perfect as my singing!"
He started singing again, louder and even further off key, demonstrating the full extent of his prowess. Both Henry and Rika laughed at him, any potential tension evaporating. Henry joined in, attempting to harmonize and failing spectacularly.
"You're both so lame," Rika said, without any real heat. She hummed the tune along with them, soft enough that it was easy to miss.
Somehow, they course-corrected and meandered their way to Henry's apartment complex. A marked improvement from the last time the trio drank together, when they had mysteriously wound up staying the night in Shinjuku Park, hunkered down at Guilmon's old hideout. At one point, they even boxed Takato in with cardboard while Takato howled like a dog, a rather strange memory to recollect sober.
"Sure you two will be able to make it home without a chaperone?" Henry grinned.
Rika flipped him off while Takato doubled over, giggling again. That Takato might vomit briefly worried Henry, but Takato pulled himself together and saluted with a cheeky grin of his own. They waved goodbye and parted ways. It had been a fun night, freed from the concerns plaguing Henry for the last—years, even. They would return, as they always did, but not just yet. Not just yet.
Henry should have taken the elevator to the 46th floor, but instead went several floors higher. Even though he had a key, Henry chose to knock, and a bleary-eyed Janyu answered the door. He was grayer and more lines marked his face, otherwise mostly unchanged from the stalwart figure of Henry's childhood.
"Henry? It's the middle of the night."
"I'm drunk," Henry informed his father.
"So I see." Janyu frowned. "Weren't you just discharged from the hospital? Is this wise?"
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Henry complained. "People leave hospitals all the time. People drink all the time. There's no, no, no correlation. I know my… limits."
"Of course." Amusement twinkled in Janyu's dark eyes. Voices could be heard down the hall: Henry's mom, and Suzie's familiar whine. Janyu cleared his throat, called out a swift reassurance, and stepped beyond the apartment threshold. "C'mon, let's get to your place. We're disturbing the peace."
Janyu placed a hand on Henry's shoulder and guided him toward the elevator. Henry followed, docile, drowsiness beginning to set in. To let his father lead, follow in his wake, felt nice. Maybe Henry just wasn't built to make difficult decisions. Difficult decisions like entering the correct apartment, for example.
It was dark inside, until Janyu flipped on the lights. Henry blinked and sank down against the living room wall, balanced on the balls of his feet. This was his wall now, to defend and protect at all costs. Janyu had picked up a photograph of Henry with Takato and Rika and the digimon on the counter, distracted, but chuckled when he spotted Henry.
"You're not going to make me tuck you into bed, are you?"
"... No." Henry was slow to answer, slower still to slide on his ass, legs sprawled out before him. Janyu came and crouched beside Henry. He reached out a hand, hesitated, then gently ruffled Henry's hair. Henry leaned into the touch, craving contact. "I'm tired, Dad."
"So sleep."
"I can't. I just… I can't."
Janyu said nothing. His hand fell to his knee. Henry thought about messaging Terriermon, but it seemed like too much effort, monumental effort, in the moment. His apartment was not large, but just then, the space stretched and contorted into a cube of infinite height and width. Everything loomed over Henry, and it all seemed so very far away.
"It'll never be better, will it?" Janyu asked, voice suddenly thick. "And it's all my fault."
Henry stayed quiet, alcoholic haze making it difficult to parse his father's meaning. Part of him knew anyway, though, because the truth always existed unacknowledged between them. He shook his head. Henry had forgiven Janyu a long time ago, almost before the sting of betrayal even faded. But while he could offer grace, he could not offer peace of mind. He could not make Janyu forgive himself.
They were similar that way.
Henry rested his head on his father's shoulder. He took comfort in the solid warmth, ten years old again and swept up in the conviction that Janyu was infallible and could commit no wrongs, ever. Whatever was broken, his father would surely fix; whatever burden Henry bore, his father would surely lift free. More than a man, beyond the limitations of mankind, practically a god.
"It's not…" But Henry was already drifting off into slumber. He was done thinking.
How did the quote go? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. The last words he heard Janyu utter were almost unintelligible, forgotten come morning:
"It would've been easier if you hated me instead."
Rika wore sunglasses the next day. She rested on her knees on a reed-woven mat within her grandmother's prized tea house. Seiko herself was swathed in clean white linens, busy whisking green tea leaf powder. She moved at an unhurried, methodical pace.
Jeri sat beside Rika. Rika could sense the smile radiating from her friend, even unseen. She refused to acknowledge it, even as it threatened to tug free a mirrored smile from Rika. She stiffened her spine and stared straight ahead, stone faced, praying her throbbing brain wouldn't melt through her ears while they waited.
The warm, hibiscus-tinted scent of tea filled the hut. The weekly ritual had become one of the favorite parts of Rika's week. It was meditative and relaxed, surrounded by two of the people she cared about most. Rika absently thought of a stanza from a senryu:
stopped in my tracks
by a primrose blooming –
I, too, will overcome this
Seiko reached for the tea kettle as it began to stridently whistle. She then paused, frowning, hand hovering in mid-air as if uncertain whether to pick it up. Rika and Jeri stayed quiet at first, but as the pause extended, Rika cleared her throat. Seiko started.
"Oh, sorry. I'm… not sure where my mind went, there," Seiko said with a chuckle.
She had struggled through a string of illnesses over the past few years and aged tremendously fast during the difficult period. Some of the vitality that burned so vibrantly within her had been lost, as she became thinner and frailer than a younger Rika would have ever believed possible. But Rika didn't like to think about it. As far as she was concerned, Seiko would outlive both her and Rumiko with years to spare.
Rika and Jeri exchanged concerned glances.
"Oh, don't worry, dears," Seiko said, catching their shared look. "I'm fine."
Seiko circled the room, pouring both Rika and Jeri a cup of tea. They turned their delicately engraved bowls until they faced away, then picked them up. Steam spiraled lazily toward the ceiling; Rika and Jeri bowed their head respectfully while Seiko found her seat again.
After they finished their drinks, Rika waited outside and Jeri had a conversation with Seiko. The tea had done wonders for her headache. Rika sat on the patio and stared unseeing at the family koi pond. She had kept her D-Power on her person during the ceremony, as she always did, because she liked the idea that Renamon was there in spirit.
Rika thought about what they had learned from Azulongmon the other day. The truth of it troubled her, as well as how long it had taken to learn such a cold, hard truth. None of the digimon had seen fit to mention it. But why?
Rika: Renamon?
Renamon: Yes, Rika?
Rika: Will you ever talk about what happened while we were gone?
It took several minutes for Renamon to respond.
Renamon: What do you want to know?
Rika: I don't know… why you're all so evasive, would be a good place to start.
Renamon: Because some of us did things we're ashamed of.
Rika was unsure how to reply. Her heart skipped a beat. In the time between, Jeri ambled out and sat beside Rika. She watched Rika, curious.
"How's my grandma?" Rika asked, in an attempt to steady her thoughts.
"She went inside the house to lay down."
That triggered Rika's protective instincts. She half-rose from her sitting position. "Maybe I should check on her."
Jeri shook her head. "Ms. Hata thought you might say that. She said don't bother, she's just tired."
Rika was torn. But if Seiko said she was fine, the discussion with Renamon should take precedence. Rika realized she was looking for a reason to avoid the discussion. Slowly, she sat back down.
Rika: What do you mean? What about you?
Renamon: No. I know how to be alone.
Renamon: I've already said too much. I'm sorry, Rika. It's not my story to tell.
"You okay?" Jeri asked.
Rika stowed the D-Power away and pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead, frowning. The bright sunlight hurt her eyes, and she blinked twice. Between this development and the argument with Ryo, she was feeling more than a little overwhelmed. Why couldn't life ever stop, or at least slow down a little? Sometimes it felt like when something went wrong, it triggered an avalanche that continuously piled on. Just more and more, on and on and on. She was tired.
"No, not really," Rika said.
Jeri hesitated. Then she moved to stand behind Rika, hand threading through Rika's bun. She loosened it into a ponytail, and patiently began plaiting it. Rika usually hated when people played with her hair, but as with most cases, Jeri was an exception. Some of the tension in Rika's frame drained away and she closed her eyes, at peace, if only briefly.
"Is this about the Hada case?" Jeri asked. It took a moment for the question to penetrate the haze of calm. Rika stirred.
"Kinda. I'll figure it out, don't worry."
"Hmm." Jeri undid the plait, returned Rika's hair to its original bun.
Rika opened her eyes and took in the courtyard more fully. Sometimes she missed living with her mom and grandmother in her childhood home. It defined Rika as much her clothes or her taste in music. But in the end, she enjoyed the freedom of owning her own space too much to give it up for nostalgia's sake.
"Ryo and I had a fight."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"It was my fault," Rika said. A beat. "Every time I think he might be better, something happens and it's like he resets. Nothing seems to work. Not medication, not CBT, not exposure therapy. I…" Sometimes I'm afraid part of him will be broken forever.
Rika trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
"Isn't it funny, how you tend to see the worst of the people you love most?" Jeri went and plopped beside Rika again, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them. "Sometimes I still get that feeling, you know—that feeling that everything is pre-determined and meaningless and nothing will ever change. It's hard. And I hear stories like what's happening to Fumiko Hada, or how you and Ryo and Takato are struggling, and it only makes it worse. I hate how… helpless I am. I wish I could do more for you."
"Jeri, I think I would lose my mind if you weren't around," Rika said. "I can only handle so much goggleheaded testosterone."
Jeri giggled. Rika took her D-Power back out and absently traced the blue border. The memory of Renamon's words hovered unseen on the blank screen.
"I know what you mean, though," Rika said. "And I don't know how to fix it either. But you have to keep trying, right? If you give up, if you quit, then it's over. All you can really do is try to be better."
Takato awoke with a horrendous hangover.
His pulse thundered in his eardrums and his mouth was full of cotton. Takato groaned and threw an arm over his face, the light creeping into the room painful even with his eyes shut. Jeri's side of the bed was empty; she had no doubt left hours ago, since today was the day she had tea with Rika and Seiko.
Takato braced himself, then opened his eyes. The alarm clock swam into view: it was midafternoon. Why did it have to be so bright everywhere?
"Oooh it burns," he moaned.
Takato lumbered into an upright position. He moved gingerly, as if anything quicker would result in imminent destruction. His D-Power sat beside the alarm clock. Takato stared at it, committed to the time-honored male pursuit of thinking about nothing. Then he stood to take a bath.
The bath helped. His headache receded somewhat, and Takato realized he was starving. Mie was downstairs manning the counter, her body language tense and radiating irritation. Uh oh. Not a good sign. There were no customers currently, either, which meant no potential buffer between them.
"Well, look who decides to join us," Mie sniffed. "Stumbling in at ungodly hours then sleeping the day away. I still don't understand why you took that ridiculous job—it's turned you into a slovenly cave man. Do you not have to work?"
"Yeah, but there's a lull before the investigation picks back up." The nicest part about being your own boss was the flexible hours.
Mie snorted. "Investigate what? The bottom of a beer bottle?"
"I was very thorough," Takato assured her. Mie jerked up and glared hard at him.
"Takato!"
Her voice hurt his head. Takato grimaced and focused on an invisible point on the wall. "Can we… not do this right now?"
Mie huffed but swept over with water, a sandwich, and Tylenol. Gratitude and a hint of shame replaced Takato's beleaguered annoyance. He smiled at his mother—who sniffed again—and downed the medicine in one big gulp.
Takato leaned against the bakery's glass display case, munching on his lunch. Baked goods, nestled together with aesthetically patterned cue cards, thanks to Jeri, glowed back at him. After the D-Reaper attack, their business had seen an influx of traffic that allowed them to afford some renovations, although the increased customer flow had tapered off after about a year.
Otherwise, little about the store had changed over the years. He had always taken comfort in that, in having a point of reference even when the rest of his world shifted on its axis. Mie was much the same, a permanent fixture Takato could always depend on despite her eccentricities.
"Do you need help with anything?" Takato asked once he finished eating.
"Dishes," Mie said, with zero hesitation. He stifled a groan but complied regardless. After Takato had grown out the beard, he had been uniformly banned from baking any bread.
He went in back and took everything out of the dishwasher, drying them by hand and double-checking to ensure food hadn't stuck to any of the plates through the wash cycle. Takehiro was nearby, in the kitchen kneading dough. He paused to smile indulgently at Takato.
"Did you have fun last night?"
"Yeah. Or, uh, pretty sure. It's a little fuzzy," Takato said, smiling back.
"Trust me, whatever you get up to with Henry and Rika, is incredibly tame compared to the trouble your mom and I used to cause," Takehiro said, lowering his voice confidentially.
"I heard that!" Mie shouted from the other room. Takato and Takehiro grinned at each other before returning to work.
Takato enjoyed menial labor. It was calm and simple. There were no moral quandaries to be found in scrubbing plates clean. In that sense, he understood Ryo's preference for construction work. Just complete the task and move onto the next. Again, and again. Meanwhile the mind could roam free. Although the longer his mind roamed free, the more his fingers itched to draw.
"Mind if I take a break?" Takato asked about halfway through. Takehiro nodded his assent. Mie grumbled but relented as well.
Takato dried his hands off on a towel. The Tylenol had worked wonders and he felt much better, even if the heat from the kitchen made him a little dizzy. He went up to his room, grabbed some art supplies, then walked over onto his room's balcony to enjoy the cool autumn breeze. They had set up a small chair and table there, years back, that made for a wonderful spot to draw.
The outline of an epic battle between Guilmon and some evil digimon took shape. When Takato was in a creative mood, he often felt less like he was bringing an idea to life, and more like he was carving out what had always been there upon the material. Revealing its truth, or something pretentious along those lines.
Jeri visited not long after. Takato smelled her before he saw her, a mix of lavender and baked bread and something indescribable but undeniably Jeri. Focused on his art, Takato asked, "Hey, Jeri. How was tea?"
"Not bad. We had to start late though, because Rika wasn't feeling well." A sly undercurrent could be heard in the remark.
"Weird, I had the same issue. Must be making the rounds at Nakano." Takato smiled, somewhat sheepish.
Jeri giggled and walked over, resting her chin on his shoulder, arms encircling his own in an embrace. Her gentle solidity anchored him to the present; too often Takato found all he could do was fret about the future or lose himself in the past. With Jeri neither seemed quite so important as the now of her presence.
She peered at his sketch, then reached for his pen. Takato offered it without resistance. Jeri leaned forward, eyes narrowed in concentration, strands of hair brushing against his cheek. A large speech bubble bloomed on the page, above the half-finished, monstrous villain digimon. Words soon followed:
MWUAHAHA! ALL YOUR BREAD NOW BELONGS TO ME!
Takato laughed. When Henry had lived in America, he would on occasion send them comic strips from The New York Times. Neither Takato nor Jeri had ever been great at English and would often fabricate what the characters in the strips were saying. It then translated to ridiculous dialogue even for their own art projects, their longest running joke at this point. Takato responded:
Not so fast! Your bread-snarfing days will soon be at an end!
He could feel her smile into the skin of his neck. Jeri absently threaded her fingers through his hand, lifting it to press a kiss against the heel of his palm. Takato blushed and kissed her knuckles, other hand caressing the downy-soft hairs on her forearm. It amazed him, sometimes, how someone who had dealt with such hardship could still be so soft. Almost without thinking, since most of the blood for that endeavor had rushed decidedly south, Takato scratched a new sentence onto the paper:
Do you want to have a baby?
Jeri hesitated. Strange, how a second could last a lifetime and years could pass in the blink of an eye. Time was funny that way. At last, she replied:
What about Guilmon?
The answer caught Takato off guard. Of all the various permutations he had run through his head for this conversation, that question had not been one of them. He was startled enough to speak out loud.
"What? What about him?"
Jeri pulled back, moving around to sit across the table from him. She had a resigned expression on her face.
"A baby is a lot of responsibility, and—"
"I know that," Takato interrupted, stung. Jeri frowned at him. "Sorry."
"… You've been busy trying to balance Guilmon and home already. How are you going to handle raising a child on top of that, without neglecting either one? It's barely been a year since you were reunited with Guilmon. That was a big change in all our lives, a change we're still adjusting to. And now another major life change? I don't know, Takato. I just know I don't want our child to be raised mostly by me and your parents—or for Guilmon to be left behind in the process."
Takato was at a loss for words. The urge to argue rose, strong, to reject the implication that he had to choose between a child and Guilmon, but he couldn't figure out how to phrase the feelings. They hovered pitch-black and frustrated between his lungs and his tongue.
Moreover, he resented that Jeri had considered a concern for Guilmon he had not. It reminded Takato of his old insecurities, how much he feared his own lack of worth as a tamer. He could taste bile in the back of his throat. Jeri touched his hand, expression sympathetic, but he drew away.
"I don't… I need to think."
Jeri nodded. "All right. I should head downstairs anyway, I've been gone too long."
She left him there, lost in thought. Takato stared at the half-finished drawing, the long lines and dark curves of the shapes leaving black spots behind his eyes. He stood eventually and headed inside, picking up his D-Power and flopping belly-up onto the bed. Takato had sent Guilmon a few drunken messages the night before, only vaguely coherent. Guilmon's first couple responses had been confused until at last he seemed to understand.
Guilmon: Oooh is Takato in a funny mood again? I like this game! I'll play too!
Guilmon: Knock, knock. Who's there? Adore. Adore who? Adore is between us. Open up, Takato!
Takato had never replied. He must have passed out by then. He flicked on the D-Power to type a message, then stopped and set it aside, suddenly overwhelmed. Tears filled his eyes, and he took a deep breath.
"Takato! Have you forgotten about how breaks work, too? You can't just disappear like—"
Mie stopped mid-rant when she caught sight of her son. He wiped hastily at his face, braced for a tongue lashing. But Mie didn't do that. She just sat on the bed beside Takato, both content to say nothing at all, not even a word. Everything that needed to be said already had been. Proximity was enough.
Notes:
Poem is from "scent of orange blossoms" by Teresa Mei Chuc
I'm quite proud of this chapter, I must say. When I first started this project, one of the big question marks in my outline was Jeri. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to define her, specifically her relationship with Takato, and toyed with several different possibilities, even reading a couple different fics that wrote them together. But nothing quite fit what I felt accurately captured Jeri, or the version of Jeri I wanted to portray, anyway. I thought this was a great compromise, showing tension in the relationship while having them still clearly be in love and have a rock-solid foundation.
grabdog on Chapter 1 Fri 05 Aug 2022 01:35AM UTC
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TheColorOfTelevision on Chapter 1 Fri 05 Aug 2022 02:24AM UTC
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grabdog on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 04:09AM UTC
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TheColorOfTelevision on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 04:59PM UTC
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