Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Matter of Perspective ❯ Daisuke ( Chapter 23 )

DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: Here we are, at long last. Hooray! There's only one more part to this fic, and that's only an epilogue. Those of you who were ready to lynch me after that last cliffhanger can relax now. We're in Daisuke's point of view again for the final installment, and I hope that most of your questions will be answered by it. The remainder should be taken care of in the epilogue. Additionally, I'm sorry about that last cliffhanger -- I didn't tell you about it in the notes for reasons that can only be described as mean-spirited. *unashamed look of evil*

There was a very long silence. After a moment, Daisuke wondered whether his entrance hadn't been in bad taste. He couldn't see what everyone was so upset about, though -- the strange guy was making a joke. Right? Daisuke looked from Hikari to Jyou to the strange guy who looked kinda like Jyou and then finally settled on the stricken face of his idol. No one seemed to be laughing.

"They can't be pregnant," was the first thing Ken said, even before getting onto his own two feet.

"Now," the kinda-Jyou-looking man began in a tolerant sort of voice, "I'll agree it certainly seems unlikely, but your friends only asked for my best guess..." He rubbed the back of his neck and then offered a hand to Daisuke for shaking. "Kido Shin. Jyou's brother."

Well, that certainly explained the resemblance. "Motomiya Daisuke."

"Ichijouji Ken," his boyfriend offered distractedly. "But you don't understand. They really can't be pregnant. It's not possible."

Before Daisuke had time to do much more than gape (since when did Ken make absolute statements without at least getting stammery and awkward about it?), Koushirou stepped in and announced gruffly that this whole conversation was pointless. "Right now," he went on more smoothly, "Ken-kun and I ought to be devoting our full attention elsewhere. Don't you agree, Taichi-san?"

A reluctant nod was all the answer he got. Quietly, Hikari offered to phone Miyako and Mimi. She and her brother were more alike right now than Daisuke had ever seen them -- staying close together and both very pale. He bit his lip and looked away, only to have Ken suddenly grab his arm and drag him into the next room. Koushirou followed, and closed the door behind them very nicely before exploding.

"What, exactly, did you think you were doing out there, Ken-kun? Don't you REALIZE that these people will want to know exactly how you can be so sure that Yamato-san and Takeru-kun aren't pregnant?"

The indigo-haired boy shrank back momentarily, but then straightened up to his full height -- putting him several centimeters above the top of Koushirou's head. Damn him and his freakish tallness. "Does that really matter now? Don't you see, it's all gone wrong! We have to get these girls back to normal right away. There isn't time to worry about anything else!"

"There's always time to worry." Koushirou raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to get lynched, Ken-kun? Because that's exactly what will happen if you go back out there and say that, oops, you've known how to change them back all along. Besides," he added, shifting uncomfortably, "how do you know they're not really pregnant? Maybe Taichi-san had a little fun. He's not exactly the careful type, you know."

"And Takeru-san?" Ken shot back. "What about her? You know better. This can't be happening! We were too careful by half."

Irritation flashed across Koushirou's normally impassive face, but before he could actually say anything, Daisuke put his fingers between his lips and whistled shrilly. That got their attention. He grinned sheepishly. "Not that I'm not used to being confused, guys...but would one of you two geniuses mind telling me what the hell's going on? Careful how -- and about what?"

The Keeper of Kindness and the Keeper of Knowledge exchanged glances, but then Koushirou threw up his hands and turned away. "Oh, by all means, Ken-kun. By all means."

"Well..." Ken eventually began, "do you remember what you said back at the beginning? About not giving Yamato-san the, err, opportunity..." He paused, seeming to reconsider his approach, and Daisuke couldn't help wondering whether he really wanted to know after all. This much tact was never a good sign. "About her first period." The indigo-haired boy flushed, but forced himself to keep going. "More specifically, avoiding blame for it."

Even more than a week old, that sounded like good advice to Daisuke. "Right..."

When Ken only floundered helplessly, Koushirou gave him a look of disgust and picked up the narrative. "It was an unusually astute observation on your behalf, Daisuke-kun -- "

"Gee, thanks."

" -- and one by which we fully intended to abide. Only, somewhere along the line..."

"...We started wondering, 'Why let Yamato-san have a period in the first place?'" Ken finished, in a voice like he thought Daisuke was about to hit him.

Daisuke blinked slowly. "You what?!" he demanded, very reasonably under the circumstances.

"We extended the alteration," Koushirou confirmed. "There are, of course, redundant systems for both the male and female alters -- but compared to the full scale of the undertaking, that was relatively simple..." Then, seeing that Daisuke was about to explode, he turned suddenly defensive. "You don't understand. We had to, Daisuke-kun."

"Had to?" Daisuke repeated, disbelievingly.

A distinctly uncomfortable look crawled across Koushirou's face. "Well...you must realize that I have never attempted to sustain an alter for this long before. Suppose that one thing led to another and Yamato-san did wind up pregnant. Over the course of nine entire months...there would undoubtedly be complications."

"Complications?" He felt like a parrot. "What do you mean, 'complications'?"

"I mean, I didn't think it was possible." The pained expression on Koushirou's face seemed to say that he missed his big complicated words.

It was reassuring in a way to know that even someone like Koushirou could be wrong once in a while, and Daisuke said so. He got nervous when the redhead merely raised his eyebrows, murmuring noncommittally, "Perhaps...but then again, perhaps not."

Annoyed, Daisuke sat down. "If you think there's something wrong with the pregnancies, you should just say so."

"Fine." Koushirou took the chair opposite him. "Yes, I think there's something wrong with the pregnancies. I think there really has to be. Daisuke-kun, those women are both sterile -- and even if they weren't, it isn't as if they have any eggs to fertilize! Now, unless Shin-san cuts one of them open and proves me wrong, I'm afraid I must continue to believe that the wombs in question are barren. Utterly devoid of any nourishment, less than half the size they ought to be, and airless." He shrugged lightly. "No human fetus could survive those conditions."

"Then maybe they aren't human."

The words were so soft and so sudden that Daisuke almost jumped out of his skin. He turned to find his boyfriend leaning back against the door, and looking as startled by his own comment as anyone else.

Much too late for it to be convincing, Koushirou rolled his eyes and muttered, "That's ridiculous. What else would they be, Ken-kun?"

"You already know what I think they are," the indigo-haired boy replied. "All things considered, it's amazing that everything has held together for this long, but now things are finally starting to fall apart. It's clear what must be done."

With a weary sigh, Koushirou nodded. "Reprogram the gate. Go out there and tell them the truth, or as much of it as we can right now. Find Miyako-kun, email Mimi-san -- and get all four of them back to normal within the hour."

"Before their condition worsens," Ken agreed quietly.

For a moment, the older boy didn't move. "You know, it's funny," he said at last. "I've known something like this would happen from the beginning, but I still haven't come up with a good explanation. Do you think there is one?"

"No." Ken smiled faintly. "But we have to try anyway, don't we?"

Of course, this pretty much left the talking up to Daisuke, but when they actually got back to the front room, where Taichi and Hikari were waiting anxiously -- the words just died on his lips. Instead of giving some rousing speech about good intentions, Daisuke ended up staring at his idol like an idiot while Ken handled all the difficult bits. Sure, no one else really asked any questions either (Hikari came right out and said that this wasn't the time for it), but Taichi's silence felt heavier somehow. More judgmental.

He found himself wondering suddenly how he would've felt in the same place. With Ken barely conscious and soaked in his own pained sweat, would he have fallen into that kind of grim trance? God, how were they ever going to deal with it once their friends had time enough to think? Taichi was so going to hate him -- and why shouldn't he? Just because Daisuke had never meant for any of this to happen...

And then they were all suddenly standing in front of the computer in Koushirou's room, dislodging some whiny little kid that Daisuke didn't recognize. It took him a minute to realize that, in the time he'd wasted feeling sorry for himself, other people had actually gotten things accomplished. Even Hikari was being productive -- explaining the situation to Miyako over the phone while at the same time easing her girlfriend into a gentle sitting position. Which really wasn't fair, since she shouldn't have been any more useful than him.

"Shit, but this hurts," Yamato hissed through her teeth, carefully taking the chair next to her little sister.

Takeru rolled her eyes and said nothing, not looking all that sympathetic. He had an expression on his face that made Daisuke think they had wasted a lot of time arguing over this in the other room. He wondered how Jun would've reacted, knowing they could only go through the gate one at a time. And sighed when he realized that she probably would have stepped over him to get to the computer screen. Well, not that he wouldn't have done the same thing...

Then again, in a real emergency? You never knew. It wasn't like Jun hated him or anything...at least, not most of the time.

A flash of white light brought Daisuke back to the present just long enough to realize that Takeru had passed through the gate. He blinked, startled -- somehow, he hadn't really expected them to pull this off. Even as Yamato lifted her digivice, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. No way anything could be this easy.

Since he was still thinking this when Koushirou opened his mouth and said casually, "Let's just hope you're right, Ken-kun," Daisuke felt more relieved than anything else. There was the other shoe.

Although she had been staring intently at the monitor, Yamato's head snapped round immediately. "Right about what?"

"Well, you know." Maybe if he hadn't been focusing so intently on his computer stuff, Koushirou would have stopped while he was ahead, but as things were? He just went right on going amiably. "About the alters. If it's really just them deteriorating, then Takeru-kun is fine now that he's male. If it's a real pregnancy -- "

The blonde's eyes were suddenly way too big for her face. "Pregnancy? What pregnancy?"

At first, Daisuke just wondered whether Yamato was really, really stupid. Then it dawned on him that, even though Ken and Koushirou had gone over as many of the finer details as they dared with most of the Chosen Children, no one had bothered to tell any of the victims what was going on beyond the fact that they were in danger. Yamato wasn't stupid -- just completely uninformed.

"Well," Koushirou had begun, having finally noticed his friend's tone of voice instead of just her words, "I wouldn't worry about it. It's not really possible."

Unfortunately, Yamato had gotten past the point of listening to him. She touched her belly gingerly, and gazed at Ken hopefully. "How?"

"We're not sure."

In a strange, not-totally-there voice, Yamato whispered, "I can feel it moving inside of me...but it hurts. Why does it hurt?"

Where she couldn't see him, Koushirou was already opening the gate again. You didn't really need to shout -- just brandish your digivice. And from the way he caught Daisuke's eye now, he had no intention of waiting for Yamato to do that on her own. The redhead held up three fingers, and nodded silently. On the count of three, he was supposed to shove their friend into the digital light, with or without her consent? Daisuke recoiled instinctively. Didn't they have time to explain?

In the background, he could still hear his boyfriend's smooth voice. "Because your body isn't ready for it, Yamato-san. This isn't a normal pregnancy. The baby is probably dead already."

Deliberately, Koushirou lowered one of his fingers.

"But it's not," Yamato protested. "It's still alive, Ken."

Two fingers.

Suddenly, the blonde jolted. "You're going to kill it, aren't you?" She grabbed Ken's arm. "By changing me back."

Three fingers. Yamato got to her feet. Daisuke shot a desperate look at Ken, and found his pretty violet eyes averted. Up to him, then -- but did he really have a choice? He gritted his teeth, caught Yamato's left hand -- the one gripping her digivice -- and shoved it up against the computer screen. She cried out, startled, and vanished in another flash of brilliant white light. Daisuke had exactly two seconds to feel bad about what he'd done before Taichi spun him around and summarily broke his nose.

The entire room exploded into sudden motion, like a photograph coming to life, but all Daisuke could do was sink to the floor while blood ran down his chin unheeded. No one paid him much attention. Hell, even the bratty little kid they'd uprooted only gazed around the room in blatant admiration from the doorway when he burst in abruptly. A bewildered-looking Miyako was standing behind him -- looked like no one else had been around to let him in when he showed up.

"Jeez," the kid blurted happily. "You sure have some great friends, Hikari-san!"

Then Miyako wanted to know what was going on, and what this brawl had to do with the cure they were supposed to have found...which started up a brand-new fight over whether Koushirou was just trying to kill them all. Taichi didn't seem very interested in listening to excuses, and Hikari was only calmer in that she hadn't started beating the shit out of anybody. Yet. You never really knew with Hikari.

"Well, dead is a very strong word for it -- but they're definitely a little resentful," said a voice that Daisuke hadn't heard in ages. Not since the last Digital World crisis, almost four years ago. He crawled out from underneath Koushirou's desk to make sure, and Gennai smiled down at him. "Hello there, Daisuke. Good to see that you've kept busy! How's V-mon these days?"

"Oh, uh...fine." He scrubbed quickly at the blood, wondering whether he'd lost enough to make him lightheaded.

When Hikari stepped forward, uncertainly but definitely looking at the same thing he was, Daisuke decided on a 'no'. "Gennai-san? You look...different."

Her tone of voice made it clear that this was the most polite way she could think of to observe the fact that instead of the twenty-something Gennai who'd appeared to them before or even the wizened old man Takeru had once mentioned, Gennai was now a very small boy -- younger even than the kid. (The kid whose mouth seemed to have gotten stuck, but that wasn't Daisuke's problem.) He looked about five or six, but his voice hadn't changed and the effect was sort of...creepy. When he grinned, there was something slow and almost jerky about it -- as if he were being animated at the wrong frame rate.

"I'm trying to save memory," Gennai offered with a characteristic lack of concern. "There's only a finite amount in the system, you know, and the program you just ran ate up a lot of it. I'm going to hear from the File Islanders about this one for sure. The second major power surge in two weeks..."

"What was the first one?" Miyako demanded suspiciously.

Little Gennai whirled around to face him, and then grimaced. "Oh, no. Not another one. Who else?"

"Mimi-san," Ken admitted, sounding vaguely terrified. Maybe he was wondering whether they were gonna get chewed out over this, too.

"Well, you're not doing any more of that," Gennai said firmly. "We'll handle them the old-fashioned way." He snapped his fingers.

Miyako shivered, opened his mouth, and was quite suddenly a girl once more. The excess data had simply flaked away from her like dry mud. She stared down at herself in evident disbelief. "I'm...I'm me again."

The kid collapsed, making lots of small-animal-type noises, and Hikari went over to make sure that he was okay. Koushirou looked like he might need her help, too, in a few seconds. "But..." the redhead babbled, "you just...snapped, and...Mimi-san, too?"

"Of course. Your program is extremely inefficient," Gennai informed him primly. "Working through it would have taken ages. But simply removing the entire alter? Child's play, if you'll excuse the pun."

"Your program?" Taichi repeated slowly, and his eyebrows drew sharply together.

"Ah, well, you see..." Koushirou argued.

Fortunately, Takeru chose that moment to contact them. A tiny window with his grinning (and incidentally male) face in it appeared over the gate, and they all crowded around to hear his report. The pain seemed to be completely gone, although Yamato had gone weirdly despondent. Giving Koushirou the sort of look that promised later words -- or maybe just violence -- Taichi took out his own digivice and went to comfort his girl...boyfriend. Daisuke shook his head slightly. Great, it'll take me another two weeks to get used to that...

Without really thinking about what he was doing, the Bearer of Courage had drifted to the outskirts of the group -- and after a moment, he left the room completely. It had nothing to do with wanting to avoid blame. He knew he'd get blamed eventually anyway. The door clicked softly behind him, and Daisuke realized that his boyfriend had followed his lead. Neither of them spoke, and at first he kept his back to Ken entirely, not sure that he had anything to say. Then, quite suddenly, the words were there.

"That came so close to fucking up completely."

They weren't really directed at Ken, but if the other boy had a response...well, he was welcome to start up a proper conversation.

"Close, yes." Ken tilted his head to one side, gorgeous dark hair following the movement like colored water. "But everyone's all right now. Some of them are even better off than they were before."

He groaned. "Are you kidding me? This was such a stupid thing to do. I could've gotten the whole lot of them killed!"

When the hand landed on his shoulder, Daisuke looked up and saw a tiny smile on his boyfriend's face.

"Daisuke."

"Yeah?"

"You meant well."

Wonderful, Ken was patronizing him. "Whatever."

Smile softening, the Keeper of Kindness took Daisuke's face in those wonderfully cool hands of his, so that they couldn't help but look at each other. "If you're determined to dwell on what you did wrong, I suppose that nothing I say will make the least bit of difference. But..."

"But what?" Daisuke asked, curious in spite of himself.

"I love you."

A pleasant warm glow rose inside his chest. He grinned foolishly.

Then Ken smirked, very slightly. "Besides," he went on, his voice roughening, "you've done nothing for the last month but worry about other people's relationships. If you don't start paying some attention to me very soon, I might almost feel neglected."

Well.

The clock on the wall read 9:53PM. If they caught the next train to Tamachi, they would have a full eight hours before they had to stumble out of bed in the morning for school. And Daisuke intended to make the most of that time.

End Part Twenty-Three