Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Songhai Diaries ❯ Leave me alone! ( Chapter 1 )

This story is set in Lord Archive's Diaries universe. Al rights to Digimon belongs to Toei, Saban and a bunch of other companies. The diaries universe belongs to Archive; I only toy around in the sandbox. However, Songhai Diaries characters and storylines still belong to me.

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Chapter 1: Leave me alone!
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Earth, a world filled with humans oblivious to the realities of greater schemes. A world often called the blue marble. At the junction between the largest desert on this world and the savannahs of Sahel, on a bend of the Niger river sits the large town of Bamako, capital of Mali. In the well-off Hippodrome neibourghood one can spot many large government estates, like the Konate family's.

Eleven-years-old Enitan Konate was a spoiled kid. He had all the toys a kid from a more developed country could wish for, a father well paid for his high- ranking position in the government, popularity, links to the world in the form of Internet and phone, and an ancestry anybody would envy him. And he hated it. All he wanted was for his parents to pay attention to him, just once. They were always just too busy to fulfill so little a wish.

And then there was Ife. If she would only stop paying him attention. Ife Cisse was the young girl who served the family. A year ago, his mother had decided their standing required them to have a maid in residence. However, she decided a professional would have been too costly. She looked around while travelling, and met a Peul family looking to place their daughter. She jumped on the occasion and paid them a thousand CFA francs. Ife was sweet and qualified enough not to get into any trouble with his parents.

While others servants like her were regularly beaten, she took the work heartily and was only slapped once, after she had broken a precious faience plate. His parents didn't know she escaped the house as often as she could to listen to Bamako's numerous griots. She herself came from a family of traditional storytellers and desperately wanted to complete her initiation.

Enitan was currently sitting in front of his computer, blissfully chatting away with some French kid probably unaware he was talking to an African. The door opened behind him and Ife entered, unaware of his presence, accompanied with the light sound of the broom brushing on the floor.

He spun around on his chair, his brows joining on his forehead and his mouth so distorted by anger he was about to grow new scarifications. The girl was obliviously moving her broom several inches above the floor, her mind lost in her own reverie as she stared beyond him.

"Nahamu!" he yelled. The girl eeped. When Enitan used that name, he meant business. "I've told you before. Countless times. You knock before coming in!"

"Nahamu, nahamu," she answered, justifying her nickname, "I can't be expected to knock when you're supposed to be at school, you know," she tried to justify herself, looking down. Enitan sighed deeply.

"I know, I know," she added, "you always skip school."

Enitan did that on a regular basis. He paid a fellow student to tell him the dates of the exams and still got grades good enough to be first of class. Not a difficult feat, he thought, considering most of the teachers wouldn't have got through their own exams. She looked reproachfully at him.

"Still, you could at least keep a pretence of doing so. You know I'm supposed to tell your parents about it." Her voice lowered to a whisper as she spoke and looked away, her blushing hidden by her dark complexion. Enitan shrugged.

"If only they cared about it," he muttered before turning back to the computer, only to see his interlocutor had disconnected. Not in the mood for any more writing, he decided to go watch some TV instead. Ife followed him silently.

When he entered the living, he was stopped cold. Another kid, about his age and wrapped in tattered jeans that appeared to be held together with a rope was trying to scurry back through the window. Enitan squinted.

"Ife, gimme the green porcelain leopard on the bookshelf, quick."

Ife, petrified at the sight, grasped the trinket and dropped it in the boy's extended hand. In a swift, accurate movement, Enitan threw the grinning animal. The green dash flew across the room and met his end in a sound collision with the back of the other kid's skull. Small shards of porcelain streaked on the floor, one coming to rest against Enitan's foot. The would-be thief slumped, his head and arms hanging over the window's edge. Ife finally reacted, producing a short shriek. Enitan shook his head as he walked forward to the other kid and pulled him back into the room.

Ife, who had stood dumbfounded at the door, moved to enter, but Enitan stopped her.

"Don't. There're shards everywhere."

She looked down and remembered she did not wear any shoes.

"Get ice from the kitchen. Wrap it in whatever you find. And slippers," Enitan continued.

She nodded nervously and hurried down the hall until she reached the stairs. Meanwhile, Enitan set the other kid on the ground, making sure he did not lay him down on a sharp bit. It was not easy. Enitan was not the fittest kid around, and the other was slightly older and of a better built than him. He set his head on a cushion. Then he sat next to him. Where is she? Able to notice a cue when she was given one, Ife entered the room with a dishcloth wrapped around a few ice cubes. Enitan snatched the humid cloth from her nervous grasp. If she kept twisting it around she was going to drip water all over his mother's precious carpet. Then she picked up her broom and started to collect the porcelain pieces. Enitan noticed she took great care of not damaging them further

"What are you doing? Are you really planning to glue it back together?" he asked her.

"I can't leave it like that!" A slight panic coloured the girl's voice. "Your mother will got nuts!" Enitan had to roll his eyes.

"Come on! My mother hated that cat. She won't even notice it's gone until somebody actually tell her."

"You sure? Are you going to...?" she looked at him hopefully. He smirked.

"Of course not. Unless you decide to tell them I wasn't at school today."

"You sure?"

"Walai! Promised!"

Enitan tied the cloth around the older kid's forehead so that the ice pressed against the lump in the making. He knew that wouldn't do much in the scorching May heat, but it would still help a bit.

At this moment, a piercing screech erupted from somewhere in the house. It raised in pitch until Enitan and Ife had to cover their ears in a vain attempt to protect their hearing. Just when Enitan thought his eardrums would tear away, it stopped abruptly.

"What was that?" Enitan asked. Ife shook her head.

"No idea. I think it came from down the hall."

As she pointed with her hand, a beam of white light shot from Enitan's room toward the three kids. Those that were conscious shielded their eyes from the blinding flash. For a split second, the light escaped from all the house's windows into the bright afternoon. When it finally subsided, only the cold, wet cloth was left on the floor of a very empty living room.

His feet were wet. Enitan did not like that. Not only because it was a health hazard in Bamako, but because it probably meant there was water all over his mother's marquetry and carpet. She'd go nuts. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was blue.

Not something blue. Blue colour. Just a blue void with a dark stripe across it. Probably the sky. Then he reached out and the dark stripe fell down on him. It was a spear previously stuck in the ground. Not, fortunately, in the living room's floor. That called for another realization. He wasn't home. And from the smell, he probably wasn't even in Bamako. He looked around, and noticed he was on the shore of a large lake surrounded by a savannah punctuated with the occasional tree.

"I must be hallucinating," he said aloud as he got up, brushing the sand from his nude arms. He froze and blinked. "Wait a minute..."

The boy looked down looked down at himself and screamed.

"Where are my clothes!?"

He was not hallucinating. He was having a nightmare. Then Enitan noticed he was not totally devoid of clothes. He was only wearing a loincloth. He felt around to make sure the short garment would not unexpectedly leave him, and his hands fell on something clipped to the leather cord.

"Uh? What's that?" he asked nobody in particular.

The thing looked like an oval handheld video game, white with dark blue trims. He turned it over to try and find a brand's name or logo, but nothing came up. As he tried to press the buttons, he heard voices beyond the tall grass. This reminded him in the worst way that he would not have described what he wore as a piece of clothing. Finding no other solution, he ran into the lake until the water rose to his chest, leaving the spear and strange device on the shore. Two shadows similarly clothed (or rather, similarly lacking clothes) detached themselves from the sky as they walked over the small hill. One of them had a longbow strung across its back.

"Enitan! There you are!" he recognized the voice and mentally cringed.

The two silhouette ran down the hill and stopped at the shore. Ife had the longbow across her shoulders and an ornate quiver of arrows on her back. Enitan recognized the other silhouette as the kid he had knocked out back home. A sling hung from his side. Both of them had devices similar to the one he had left ashore. Ife's eyebrow arched as she looked at him.

"What are you doing in there?" she asked. Enitan thought quickly and did as if he was trying to clean his foot.

"I walked in something."

Ife's other eyebrow raised to join the first.

"Okay, okay! I didn't want anybody to see me like this!"

The two other kids blinked. He sighed.

"It's like being in the nude! I mean... I'm not used to it being so..." he fumbled around mentally, "breezy down there!" he eventually uttered, at a loss for a better word.

Ife and the thief exchanged a look and broke into uncontrollable giggles. Enitan walked out of the water and picked up the spear and device, glaring at them all along. Then a thunderous yell came from the water.

"Who dares disturb my lake?"

Ife shrieked. Enitan turned around and was faced with a nightmarish sight. The creatures was over a dozen meters long, his body covered in armoured plates ending in a scorpion's tail tipped with a scarily large blade. Several more blades sprouted from his back and its head was completed by two huge shrimp-like tentacles. Said tentacles were currently busy trashing around in anger. Enitan swallowed loudly. Nothing like a huge problem to make you forget all your little troubles.

"Any ideas, guys?" Enitan muttered.

"Running sounds like a good idea," the other boy answered.

Making the advice theirs, the three children spun around and ran like mad. The creature yelled in rage as they climbed up the hill.

"Stinger surprise!"

Enitan forgot the golden rule and slipped a look back. The creature was sending a yellow energy ray from it's tail, carbonizing everything in it's path.

"Damnit damnit damnitdamnitDAMNIT!!!"

He scurried up the hill more desperately. Just as he prepared himself to topple over the crest, a hidden trap opened in front of him and two hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him into the darkness.

Enitan panted heavily. He could hear the other's breathing just a few feet away in the darkness.

"Ife?" he asked.

"I'm here," she answered. She was just in front of him.

"You okay?" he inquired again.

"We're alright. My head still hurt though," a reproachful voice answered. The other boy was apparently standing right behind Ife. Enitan blushed.

"Sorry 'bout that," Enitan apologized.

"Nah, t's okay. I earned it. Just gonna have to be more cautious now."

His voice became faint as he walked away in the darkness. Enitan blinked and shook his head.

"Where are we?" Ife asked.

Feeling around, Enitan found earth. Earth to the right, to the left and above.

"Some kind of tunnel," the other boy answered first. "There's another one going on the right here."

Enitan and Ife ran up to him.

"What are you doing?" Enitan asked.

"Trying to find another exit. Don't feel like explaining Mr. 'Nobody Disturbs My Lake!' that I'm not from around here."

"But what if there are more of these things?" Enitan asked.

"Well, then we're screwed up either way. I'd still prefer being screwed up in plain light, though. I... I don't like darkness."

He persisted forward.

"That's an option like another, I guess," Enitan agreed. "My name's Enitan, by the..."

"I know," the slightly older boy interrupted him.

Enitan blinked again.

"How do...?" he started.

"Your girlfriend kept calling out your name after we woke up."

Enitan froze on the spot. Behind him, Ife eeped.

"She is not my girlfriend!"

A snort. "Yeah yeah. I'm Naba. Naba Culibali."

The boy kept walking as if they weren't there.

As the voices faded away in the bowel, two other shadows walked out of the first tunnel Naba had found. They talked.

"Them? Are you sure?"

The first's voice had a squeaky quality reminding of a rubber toy.

"Of course I am. I can feel it with all my heart. Can't you?"

The other was very raspy. If sandpaper had a voice, it would sound exactly like that one.

"Yeah, I can."

A pause. then they spoke together, whispering the names they've waited so long to hear.

"Ife."

"Naba."

"Aw man! I hate guard duty!" Gabumon moaned.

The yellow horned lizard paced back and forth near the entrance to the travelling galleries. A column of smoke escaped from the village, a hundred yards away, and for a few minutes he spent time by putting figures in the moving shapes. He eventually gave up, plopped himself against the large tree that flagged the entrance and twiddled the tip of his tail.

Enitan felt like they had been walking for hours in the dark. Naba plodded forward relentlessly, occasionally pointing at a branching tunnel on either side. The gallery was just large enough for them to stand up. Enitan supposed it was either the work of small people or a very large worm. He desperately hoped the former hypothesis was incorrect.

Gabumon hummed to himself as he waited for Wormmon and Palmon to come back with their water load. He wondered why Wormmon was not the one waiting, as usual. Sure, he had drawn the shortest straw, but how could the caterpillar carry the water-skins anyway?

"Hey guys! I think I found the exit!" Naba announced, having found a wooden panel with a handle.

He tried to push it open, to no avail.

"Damn! I think something's blocking it."

Enitan and Ife joined him, but despite all their efforts, they could not force the trap open. Then Enitan felt a length of rope against his cheek and he understood.

"Silly you! The door opens on the inside!"

Gabumon interrupted his humming and snapped his fingers.

"Damn! I feel like I'm forgetting something..."

"You sure?" Naba asked.

"Of course!" Enitan answered smugly. He pulled on the rope, causing the door to violently open, shoving Ife and Naba away from him.

Gabumon continued to snap his fingers absent-mindedly.

"Come on..."

His annoyance was replaced with glee and he pointed forward with his hand. Then he disappeared from sight.

A creature crashed through the opening, falling straight on Enitan. He panicked.

"Argh! Get it off! Get it off!"

Ife and Naba backed away further, more worried about the spear Enitan waved around blindly then the smiling yellow lizard that sat on him.

"Never sit... on the... trap." Gabumon realized too late what was happening. He jumped off the child and rushed to help him to his feet, rambling worriedly.

"OhI'msosorryAreyouokayI'msorryI'msorryIwon'tdoitagain-"

T hwack!

"Get away from me!" Enitan yelled.

Gabumon rubbed the side of his head where a spot was rapidly turning purple. Ife walked slowly toward the spear-bearing kid.

"Calm down, Enitan," she said soothingly. "I don't think he's going to hurt you."

"Of course he won't!" another voice rasped.

Ife could hear every bump and rasp in it. It was a well-worn voice. A plant with a pink flower atop its head and two leafy arms reaching to the ground and a green caterpillar with stout earwig-like pincers were standing next to the bemused lizard.

"He's not going to hurt his partner. Right, Gabumon?" the insect added.

"Of course not," the lizard answered. Ife noticed his voice was very soft, like smoke. He seemed to come to a realization "My... partner? Enitan..." He pronounced the name as if it was only a faint memory. "Enitan!"

The boy, surprised by the newcomers, had let his guard down and was taken completely by surprise when the lizard lunged to hug him, laughing joyfully. Enitan tried to escape the creature's hold with all his might.

"Argh! Let go, you monster!"

The other kids and digimon collectively facefaulted.

"I think they've got a few issues to sort out," Naba stated.

"You tell me," Ife retorted.

She was busy trying to keep Enitan from whacking the lizard across the forehead with his spear again.

"No! No way I'm going out there to fight whatever just might be trying to invade this place!" Enitan yelled.

It had taken a lot of explanations just to get the boy to stop whacking the digimon (especially Gabumon) whenever they came too close to him. The digital world, digimon partners, chosen children and their destiny, it was all a lot to take in. Still, Palmon had thought the kid would be easier to convince.

"But Enitaaaaan!" Gabumon moaned.

The digimon put both hands on his shoulders, but that only made the boy angrier and he was shoved away. Gabumon fell on his butt. He looked up at the boy with sad, teary eyes.

"You!" Enitan pointed an accusing finger at the fallen digimon. "Stay away from me! There is no such thing as 'destiny'! I am master of my own future and I will not let monsters from another dimension interfere with it!"

He ran out of the village, past the enclosure, past the crops and the cotton tree. He ran forward blindly. Back in the village the others started to become nervous.

"The night is falling," Ife noticed, "Mr and Mrs Konate are going to fret out."

"The night!" Gabumon exclaimed. "They come out at night! I must find him!" And with that he ran away too. Wormmon, Naba and Ife moved to go after him, but Palmon extended her fingers to stop them.

"Not now," she advised, "that's just going to make more people out in the dark. I'm sure Gabumon... can handle this."

They walked back to where a large fire was being lit in the middle of the village.

"I have to go home now," Ife sighed. "Is there one of these portals nearby?"

The digimon showed the kids the way to a TV set embedded in the wall surrounding the village.

"Are you going to stay?" Wormmon looked up to Naba hopefully.

"I guess I am. There's nothing for me back there, really."

"Ooh!" the small digimon trembled with excitation. "Come! I'll show you my home!"

As they walked away, Ife and Palmon glanced at each others

"I'm sorry," Ife answered the digimon's mute question.

They looked into the other's eyes. Then the girl pulled her partner into a hug.

"Why?" Palmon asked.

"I have to answer for Enitan's absence. That'd make too much explanation."

She pulled away from the hug just a bit and planted a kiss on her partner's forehead.

"I'll be back, I promise," the girl added.

She gave the digimon another small hug, then pointed her digivice toward the TV set as Palmon took a step back.

"Now, how do I activate thiiii..."

An erruption of light and her being sucked in the screen interrupted her in mid-question.

Gabumon traced Enitan to a ravine over a kilometre away from the village. The boy was curled up in a ball right next to the small trickle of water at the bottom, mumbling incoherently. His voice and the sound of water mixed into a chant to the shimmering moonlight. The digimon went to sit by his side.

"We have to go back. It's dangerous out there," he stated.

"When did you grow fur?" Enitan asked out of the blue.

The question took the digimon by surprise, but he decided to answer it.

"It's my pelt. I don't usually wear it in the day because of the heat, but at night, I have to wear it. I'm kinda cold-blooded, you see, and it gets so cold I could barely stay awake without it," he explained.

Enitan nodded without a word. Indeed, he could feel the rapid drop in temperature. He fought his instincts to edge closer to the digimon. Gabumon held his hand out.

"Come. We have to go back."

Enitan noticed a change of attitude in the creature. His hand shook. His ears perked up-which was odd, considering they were technically not attached to his body. All his muscles tensed up despite his attempts not to display it. When the boy did not react, Gabumon snatched his wrist.

"They're coming!" he said, "We have to find a tunnel!"

Enitan was about to ask who theywere, but as the lizard started to drag him out of the ravine, he began to hear it. Grumbling, moaning, rustling and shuffling. Something, or rather a lot of somethings, was advancing toward them, crushing the herbs and bushes as it went along. A few seconds later, Enitan had a lead of several yards on the digimon. They ran and ran until the savannah turned to sand. Enitan tripped and went sprawling. Behind him, Gabumon dropped on all four, looking for something on the ground.

"What's this?" the boy asked, spitting sand.

"There's a trap door around here! I know it!" Gabumon panicked.

Enitan walked back and forth nervously, rubbing his arms to warm them up.

"What is this place?" he insisted.

"The desert. It starts here. They always come from the desert," the digimon answered in short, nervous spurts. Tears streamed from his eyes and under the pelt, trickling from his chin. "I'm useless, I can't even help you to hide."

Enitan suddenly yelped in pain. Gabumon's head snapped up, looking around wildly. No. They weren't there yet, but they were closing in.

"I walked on a cactus," Enitan explained. The lizard looked up to where his shadow detached in the moonlight.

"A cactus? Yes! Yes!"

The digimon rushed next to him and started digging at the sand with both hands. Enitan scowled loudly, insulted. The rustling grew closer. Eventually, with a small cry of relief, the lizard pulled a length of chain and tugged on it, triggering a trap-door to open a few feet away from them. Gabumon jumped down in the darkness. Enitan hesitated, his eyes switching between the dark pit and the savannah until one of them came out. One look at its eyes of yellow fire was all it took for him to jump down into the tunnel and slam the door shut.

What awoke Enitan the next morning was not the light pouring through an open trap door a few feet away. Nor was it the itchy feeling of the straw pile he was lying on. It was hunger. The boy had not eaten since lunch the previous day and was now positively starving. It wasn't the same door they had lunged in to hide from whatever creature had chased them in the dark. This place appeared to be some sort of hub. Several tunnels departed in all directions from the small underground room.

The hay was piled against the wall. Next to the stack stood a few clay pots. They sloshed when Enitan moved them. Water. Something blue also laid on the ground. Enitan recognized it as Gabumon's pelt. It had probably slipped off during his sleep. He vaguely remembered Gabumon covering him with it before he sat next to the pile to keep watch. The boy looked up at the open trap door. Shadows projected by a massive baobab tree streaked the light that cascaded in. The wide trunk of the tree, only a few feet away from him, actually hid most of the scenery. The shadows were those of the sparse-leaves branches, high above his head. The rustling of the savannah's herbs could be heard coming from the outside. He picked up his spear and used it to steady himself on the way out.

The dry herbs rocked by the wind waved back and forth as a yellow, arid sea. Just over where the leafless branches stopped carrying their shadow laid a bright yellow figure, his legs and tail sprawled out on his stomach. Gabumon had brought and crossed his arms under his chin. The creature snored lightly, his black nose twitching every now and then when it inhaled dust carried by the wind. Enitan nudged the lizard's arm with his foot.

"Hey. Wake up."

"Hmm not now Palmon. Gimme ten minutes," the lizard mumbled in his sleep.

As Enitan stared, he slowly flipped himself over until he was on his side, his back turned on him. The child walked up to him and lightly pricked the base of the lizard's tail with the tip of his spear.

"Come on! Wake up! I'm starving here," he grumbled to himself.

The digimon batted away at an imaginary intruder with a chuckle.

"That tickles!"

Enitan shook his head an kicked the sleeping creature in the leg.

"Come on! Get up!" the boy snapped.

"Uh?"

Gabumon rolled over on his back, his head turned toward the boy. He opened a hazed eye on the world, most of which consisted of Enitan from his point of view.

"Oh, hi Enitan," he said in a sleepy voice.

Gabumon curled and slowly stretched out, allowing the sun to bathe his numb members and his colder underside. Once he was done with that, he sat up in a swift movement and turned to his partner just in time to see him yell in pain and fall forward on him. The pelt and the spear fell to the ground when his hands came up to clutch his shoulder. Three deep gashes slowly dripped blood on his back. The digimon looked at another silhouette that stood where Enitan had been a few seconds ago. The grey-furred, long-eared creature brought its clawed hand to his mouth and licked drops of blood from it.

"Tasty," it said.

It smirked and attacked.

"Paralyze breath!"

Gabumon barely had the time to push Enitan aside before the attack hit the ground. The boy flipped over onto his back. A stone that stuck out of the ground entered the wound, causing him to produce a nerve-curdling yell and pass out in pain. That yell struck Gabumon at the very depth of his soul. He leapt out, summoning all his energy in the most powerful attack he could muster.

"Petit fire!"

The assaulter, however, had only been waiting for such a reaction. He easily sidestepped the attack and tripped Gabumon. The lizard, carried by his own enraged momentum, fell roughly to the ground where he became an easy prey.

"Paralyze breath!"

Gabumon cried out when the attack hit him square on his defenceless back. His hands trashed around in pain. He could see the shadow of the Gazimon standing over him. It raised a dangerous paw.

"And now you die," he said without a trace of emotion.

And he leapt. Unfortunately for him, Gabumon rolled over and the attacker found that he was flinging himself at a metal-bladed spear. The downed lizard had landed his hand on the weapon as his limbs jerked in apparent pain. The attacker's own weight and momentum drove the weapon through the middle of his chest. Gabumon looked in horror as the rabbit-like digimon coughed up a bubble of blood, his eyes became blank and his body limp before he finally burst into small bits of data.

When Enitan opened his eyes again, it was due to pain. He was still hungry, though. He found out he had been propped up in a hammock that hung in a small earth hut. He looked around. The only other figure in the room was Ife. She looked at him and handed out a papaya without a word. Enitan grabbed the fruit and took a huge chunk out of it. It was painful to move his right arm, so he rapidly began to use mostly his left one.

"Thank you," he said.

A head poked in with a worried look. Despite the blue fur and the blood that smeared it, Enitan immediately recognized the lizard's silhouette. He assumed the digimon had used the fur to stop the blood loss.

"Is he...?" the newcomer asked.

"He is," Ife answered. "Palmon is a good healer. But he'll tell you himself."

She nodded at the boy. Enitan sighed and addressed the digimon with an equal tone.

"I told you from the start I didn't want to be part of this. All it's done so far was to give me trouble and pain. Will you leave me alone now?"

Gabumon's head dropped as the boy talked. A tear shone in his eye.

"I... I can't do that Enitan," he said hesitantly.

The digimon slowly walked away. The boy resumed his attacks on the fruit, but Ife scowled and slapped it away. Enitan looked up in surprise but recoiled at her deadly glare.

"How could you!" she shouted in his face. "He waited for you his whole life. He wants to help you, to be your friend," she continued more calmly, "He saved your life. Twice. And all you could do was shoving and running away from him."

She groaned loudly, unable to find words capable of expressing her emotions. Enitan backed away the best he could without overturning the hammock, unused to such displays of anger.

"Hera tienan!" she accused him. "Hera don bali!"

Enitan laid there, dumbstruck, the cursing insults coursing through his head like molten lead. It was the worst statement the girl could possibly use. She could rightfully be beaten for saying such irrespectful, horrible things. That he might be so... Thankless... Ungrateful...

"You. Are. going. to. find. him. and. you. Are. going. to. apologize," she said, pausing between each words for emphasis.

"But-" Enitan tried to start.

A slap interrupted him.

"NO BUTS!" Ife yelled in his face. "You've run away from those who would help you all your life! You've run away from school, from home, you've avoided me. But you can't run away from him. You can't... You can't outrun your shadow."

She stormed out of the house. The digimon who had come to peer in the hut scattered as she went by.

Enitan laid there for several minutes, incapable of thought. Then he stomped off too. He walked aimlessly around the village, grumbling to himself. How dared she? How could she insult him like that? He eventually walked past the wall.

"How dare she?" he let out his emotions in a random kick at something in the herb.

"Because she's right," a voice answered.

Enitan looked around and saw Naba with Wormmon atop his head. Naba looked at him. He looked at Naba. The thief was the first to break the silence.

"She's right," Naba continued. "What gave you the right to treat him like you did? You could have given him some time to understand you. Heck, you could have given yourself some time to understand him, but you didn't even try. He did save your life. Twice no less."

Enitan's fists closed and opened in rhythm.

"She called me-"

"The worst insults to take are also the truest ones. You earned by no other's fault than yourself to get cursed like that," Naba interrupted him.

With these calm observations, the thief left him alone with his doubts.

Gabumon had found no other places to hide his sorrow but the same ravine Enitan had ended up into. The boy, unused to track things in the savannah, took much more time than the digimon had to get there. He could hear the lizard's cries a good distance away, but did not actually recognize the voice until he saw its owner. He walked down nest to him. The creature was bawling away, uselessly trying to muffle his cries by pressing his pelt in his face. The garment was moist with tears and blood, streaking his face with red.

"Are you alright?" he asked softly, despite the obvious.

Gabumon spun away from him.

"Go 'way! I don't want you... to see... me like... this!" he coughed up between sobs.

Enitan knelt next to him.

"Oh please! Let me help you! I refused to let you and I almost got killed twice. Don't make the same mistake I did," the boy implored.

The creature whirled and jumped at him. He threw his arms around the boy, his head on the other's shoulder, and continued to cry. Enitan felt a sharp stab of pain when a paw touched the bandage covering his wound, but didn't move. He occasionally rubbed the bumpy spine, leaving the lizard cry his pains out. The crying eventually hiccupped to a halt, but the digimon continued to hug him. Gabumon finally let got of the boy and looked at him with reddened eyes.

"Why did you come for me?" Gabumon asked.

"Someone told me I was being the worst git in history, and cursed my soul to never find peace. That person insulted me and at first I was angry. But afterwards it was pointed to me the worst insults are the true ones. I had no right to do what I did. Can you ever forgive me..." he struggled to remember the name, "Gabumon?"

For the first time, he called the other by his name. The digimon was overwhelmed. He resumed crying. They both cried.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" the boy blubbered.

They washed the tear marks off each other's face. Enitan was amazed at how easily the coagulated blood washed off the fur pelt. He had expected the operation to require thorough scrubbing and soap.

"Will you accept that I am your partner?" the digimon asked.

Enitan opened his mouth to answer and let out a small sigh.

"I'm... not sure. I'm not sure I can be that source of power you're looking for. And I'm not sure how I can possibly help saving this world."

Enitan watched his reflection, unable to looking back at Gabumon.

"I'm sorry," he added.

"Then maybe you can accept him as your friend?" an intruding voice proposed.

Gabumon and Enitan looked around. It was Ife. She and Naba were standing on the edge of the ravine with their respective partners. They looked down at the pair. The boy and the lizard turned toward each other. Enitan smiled.

"Sure. I think I could use a real friend."

He didn't see Ife's face clouding over. At this point the water at the bottom of the ravine exploded out and a cackling pillar or blue electricity rose, shooting up to the sky. The kids and digimon scattered with cries of surprise but Gabumon and Enitan would not move. They could not look away from it, fascinated. Enitan approached it.

"Enitan, get away!" Ife yelled.

"No," he mumbled, his hand extended toward the phenomenon, "there's... I must...."

He could make out an object slowly rotating within the blue energy. He snatched it in a swift move. The pillar immediately vanished and the loud cackling noise was replaced with the peaceful sound of running water. Enitan looked at the peanut-shaped object he had grabbed. It was dark grey and white with golden marks. A lightning-shaped blade stuck out diagonally from one of its ends. Next to it was a blue symbol Enitan had never seen before. The other kids surrounded him to get a better view.

"What is it?" Naba asked.

"It's... It's a digimental!" Palmon explained.

"And what am I supposed to do with it?" Enitan asked nobody in particular, examining the object under every angle. Before anybody could suggest an answer, Naba made a more immediate inquiry.

"What time is it?"

Ife appraised the sky.

"About eleven."

"Oh damn. I've got to go back. Fatima's going to kill me!"

He set off quickly for the village, his partner topping his head like an odd hat. Enitan and Ife looked at each others.

"Fatima?"

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Author's notes
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I have written (or at leats tried to) extensive notes to explain a few more obscure references in the story. They are available at my personal site: http://www.cest-pas-pareil.net/wiki/Songhai_Diaries_notes.

I'd like to give thanks to JJriddler, my idea bouncer and surrogate muse extraordinaire, Drakys, fantastic writer and my beta reader for this story. Also a playful smack on the back of the head to Digizane (Nomadic Diaries), who unwittingly sparked this in the first place.