Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digital Awakenings ❯ Buried Away ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 1:Buried Memories

A Digimon fanfic by Amor

Disclaimer:I don't own Digimon. That belongs to Toei and a bunch of other people. I might own Reile, Kei, Lily and the
other original characters, I'm not sure.


Reile strolled casually down the Tokyo streets, a tawny stray cat following her with a sleepy determination. Or so it would
seem, to any onlookers. But the average onlooker was easily fooled. And pretty stupid too.

However, Reile prided herself on not being one of the "ignorant masses". She could see through the illusion, if only because
she was permitted to. She saw that the cat lapping at her feet was no cat at all, only a feline Digimon named Illuomon.
She had a thin coat of purple fur, and a third eye on her forehead. Her tail ended in a small crystal that glimmered with
rainbow light. The glamor projected around it could fool any onlooker, and was a part of Illuomon's innate digital code.

Reile stopped purposefully outside a restaurant, which served American-style roadhouse food. She looked into the window, and
found a pale reflection. She was a fairly attractive twenty-five year-old, with long brown hair that went down to her
shoulders. She had thrown on a black jacket to protect from the chill that signalled the onset of winter. Illuomon fooled
even her reflection; in it she was a tawny, somewhat overweight cat just like everyone saw.

She nonchalantly moved away from the window and entered the restaurant. It was mostly abandoned, and she had never liked this
type of food, but that wasn't why she was here. Her eyes quickly caught sight of a girl that was a couple years younger than
her, with wide eyes and cutely cut dark black hair, currently wiping down a table. Noriko was here. Perfect.

Reile sat down at her seat and beckoned to the waitress. Noriko approached Reile cautiously. Illuomon had snuck in quickly,
and was lying disguised under the table. Noriko could see through the illusion as well as Reile, as the Rookie Digimon let
her... she was in on it too.

"You brought her here?" Noriko whispered.

"Why not?" Reile replied. "I mean, nobody's going to see. Better than her sitting at home all day bored. Besides, this way
she gets to practice with his abilities." Illuomon began to nod, but Reile tapped her with her boot as a reminder that a
normal cat wouldn't nod on cue.

"Whatever," Noriko muttered. "So, what do you want to drink?"

"Did Kou tell you anything?" Reile asked, ignoring the typical question.

"How much longer do I have to act as Kou's personal messenger before I can be bonded?" Noriko hissed.

"You can be bonded when the grandmaster says you're ready," Reile whispered evenly. "I take it that Kou told you something?"

"Yeah, he did," Noriko sighed. "He says that he's finally pinpointed the location of that item he's been looking for. He
wants all of the full members to meet in the park tonight to go get it."

He found the item? Well, one of the items. Kou had this theory that if they gathered all of these artefacts in the Digital
World, they could open a permanent portal to the Digital World, and perhaps reach realms beyond it. He had been working like
mad the last two weeks trying to track them down, though none of their group except maybe Miyako really understood his work.
It looks like it paid off.

"I'll just have some water," Reile said, breaking out of the whisper. Then, to herself, she muttered "I need to be at
maximum potential tonight."

---

Kei wondered why it had to be Ryo as his face flew towards the ground swiftly. He stuck out his hands, bracing his fall but
still scraping his palms across the pavement. "Oh, let me help you up," a now all-too familiar voice sneered. Kei quickly
rose to his feet.

"Just leave me alone Ryo," Kei said. Of all the kids in school he could have ticked off, he had to pick the strongest, most
popular jock. Ryo was only about four months older than Kei, but was almost a full head taller. Ryo was strong, smart,
fast, and even charismatic when he wanted to be. If you hadn't got on his bad side, you could consider him to be perfect.
If you had, you could consider him the perfect enemy.

Coincidentally, Ryo and Kei looked alike, other than their height. Both had messy brown hair, and liked to wear simple
clothing-- they weren't at the stages of school where they needed a uniform yet, so both just wore T-shirts and jeans even
when the weather would normally mandate otherwise.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Kei," Ryo responded calmly, tilting his head slightly to the left. This annoyed
Kei even more than when he actually did something. "Oh look," Ryo remarked. "Here's your girlfriend."

Kei almost groaned out loud. Somehow, Ryo had got it in his head that Kei liked this girl named Lily, which was completely
untrue. Sure, one could describe Lily as cute, with her shortly-cut blonde hair, cherubic face, and her habit of wearing
skirts that were just short enough to maintain innocence. But Kei wasn't interested in her, not like the whole school now
believed because of Ryo.

All this, and Kei still didn't know what he could have done to deserve it.

"Hey Ryo," Lily remarked casually as she passed them by on her roller blades. She was wearing one of those skirts again. For
some reason, Lily seemed to hold Kei responsible for Ryo's baseless rumour. And, since Kei was now an enemy of Ryo, being
associated with him was bad news for those who cared about being popular. So now Lily spoke only scathing remarks to Kei,
and even that was rare.

"Hey, Lily," Ryo said with a smile. "What's up?"

"Oh, not much," said Lily as she coasted to a stop. "I missed the basketball game last night, how did you guys do?"

Ryo's popularity had been rising higher than before, as the basketball season heated up and the team members got more
attention. The spiky-haired boy postured confidently. "We won, of course. Was there any doubt?"

Kei rolled his eyes. "Only by five points."

"Yeah, those other guys were pretty good, but they just weren't up to my skill level, you know?" Ryo had, of course,
summarily ignored Kei.

Lily wasn't entirely listening, to his chagrin. Something seemed to have caught her eye. "What's that over there?"

Kei turned to look. It seemed to be some sort of ripple in the air, like you would see in a heat wave. But it was almost
winter. And as Kei, looked around, he saw that the ripple was obscuring their sight in every direction. "Dunno. Kind of
freaky, though," Ryo muttered.

The ripple began to grow larger. It occurred to Kei that this thing might actually be surrounding them. He backed up, right
into Ryo. "Watch it," the larger boy growled, not letting their feud out of sight for a minute.

"What's going on?" Lily asked urgently. "Heat waves don't do this. I've never seen anything like this, even in summer!"

The ripple was so bad that Kei couldn't even see through it. Maybe he should try to get out of the area of the ripple. But
he was rooted to the spot in terror. Ryo was similarly paralysed, and Lily was rocking back and forth on her blades, but not
going anywhere. For some reason, it gave Kei a bit of satisfaction that Ryo wasn't being brave for once.

All of a sudden, Kei felt as though someone were watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He knew it,
someone was behind him, watching him, about to stab him and kill him and…

And then the ripple was gone. Kei blinked a few times with shock. Then he noticed his surroundings. The streets of Odaiba
were gone, replaced by flat plains and low hills as far as the eye can see.

"Where are we?"

---

"Class! Class? Quiet down please!" The volume of Kari's 5th grade class decreased, but only by a bit. There were always
a few troublemakers. A few if you were lucky. Kari decided to continue talking, rather than scream at them. "Okay, we'll
do roll call now. If you're not listening, you might miss your name and be marked absent." Another slight decrease in
volume.

"Akiyama, Ryo," Kari said, beginning to read the attendance list. When there was no answer, she marked Ryo absent. Odd, he
was never late. The students started muttering amongst themselves, as he had looked fine yesterday.

Before she called the next name, the phone rang, the shrill sound cutting through the clamour of the fifth-grade class's
chatter. "Everyone quiet while I answer the phone!" Kari all but shouted. The class quieted down as Kari strode across the
room to pick up the phone. "Hello, Hikari Kamiya, Sukete Junior High."

"Hey Kari, it's Tai," her brother's voice answered.

"Oh, hey," Kari answered. Why was Tai calling her at work? "Why did you call?"

Tai almost sounded secretive when he answered. "Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but I think I saw a…what was that one
called again? Anyway, I saw this drake-like Digimon in the sky. It's headed in your direction, I think."

Kari shook. "A Digimon? Here? Now?"

The mention of the digital monsters brought back a flood of memories, memories that had been buried away for so many years.
She remembered her partner, Gatomon. She remembered the adventures, the laughter. She remembered their foes, too, their
horrible foes. She had tried to live a normal life, tried to act as if it hadn't happened. It couldn't have happened, now
that she thought about it.

But it had.

Kari sank to her knees, the phone receiver dropping out of her hand. The class was all of a sudden silent as tears began to
stream down Kari's cheeks. She had wanted to forget about it. She liked her life. Her normal, adult life. She didn't need
giant monsters coming to mess it up. More than that, she didn't want to be reminded of Gatomon. A well of emotions, sealed
away, had just broken open and was flooding Kari's mind.

The students began to whisper, but the classroom could have been a world away. One boy broke out in laughter, but was
quickly silenced. "Are you okay?" Rene, one of the students asked.

"I thought it was over with…I thought it was over…" Kari sobbed.

A cruel voice seemed to hiss into her ear. It will never be over, the voice hissed. Not until you sit on the Throne of
Dusk.

All of a sudden, Kari felt as if something were pulling her down…down into the darkness. The darkness drew her near her.
Desperately, Kari realized that she needed to get away from the darkness, or else it would engulf her. She threw all her
powers of light at the darkness, propelling her upwards towards the light. But the darkness was so strong.

Noises came from the world outside of Kari's mental battle. The beat of a helicopter. Then screams.

"Miss Kamiya! Miss Kamiya!" she vaguely heard Rene say anxiously. And then, all of a sudden, she was away from the
darkness. She was still on her knees on the classroom floor, wet with sweat and tears. She saw Rene slumped against a desk,
unconscious. The rest of the class stared at her intently.

"The Lord of the Night shall fly forever!" she heard a bestial voice scream.

Kari just barely turned around in time to see the Digimon attack the school.

To be continued…


Author's Notes:

Revised 09/01/2005. There were some things about that chapter that were bugging me. This probably won't be changing that
much, or how it flows, but it should be fixing a couple grammar errors, and including a couple things like, you know,
character descriptions. (Thanks to one reviewer whose name I forget for pointing that out.)

For first visitors, this is basically my first Digimon fanfic, and the start of my big epic (for this series, at least). I'm
going to try and follow a bunch of plotlines (the Order, Kei's first adventure with Digimon, the lives and struggles of the
old DigiDestined, and more) and then tie them together later. And then in the next book, they'll be more plotlines... I hope
that I made the writing in this chapter readable enough to keep your interest. It does get better later on, at least I think
so.

Anyways, just a fair warning: there will be pairings in this fic, though they're more as background or subplots than anything
else. They will be kind of wierd, and only one of them will be what I would ideally ship. Also, characters will die, or
have their personalities changed slightly because of the time gap. Deal with it.