Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Matter of Perspective ❯ Sora ( Chapter 4 )

DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: Swinging the focus over to two of the most commonly hated female characters in the Digimon Adventure slash community might not seem like a bright idea, but I sure had fun with it. ^_^ Anyway, if any of this seems anti-Sora or anti-Hikari, you're imagining things because I adore them both. That's why decimating sorato is going to take some time: because I refuse to blame her for Yamato's conformity. In other news, gender pronouns are going to get a bit hairy from here on out because of individual character perception, but I'll try my best to keep it obvious and straightforward.

On any other day and under any other circumstances, Sora thought she would have done a much better job of keeping her temper. Bad enough to wake up with a splitting headache and no idea where your boyfriend had gone -- but landing in the middle of a previously-undiscovered swamp was really pushing the envelope. She could already hear the carefully understated disappointment in her mother's voice. Quiet reminders of how much this dress had cost and the way Sora had asked for it anyway, insisting that she needed something special for the reunion. Guilt trips were so much worse than being grounded.

The company didn't make things any less unpleasant. She got on with Hikari well enough, but they had never really talked before and she was beginning to understand why. After the first hour or so of hiking in complete silence, Sora had tried making conversation and couldn't help feeling offended when every attempt met with either stony indifference or a clipped, openly hostile reply. It actually seemed as if the Keeper of Light resented her very existence, and the only possible explanation made Sora deeply uncomfortable. This wasn't fair. She had tried so hard to do everything right, even going so far as to check on Taichi before asking out his best friend. They had never dated, but Sora still wanted to make sure he didn't harbor any romantic feelings for her. He said no, and she had believed him.

But everyone knew how perceptive Hikari was. She didn't get angry without a good reason, and if she thought Sora had made her brother unhappy...well. It meant that he had flat-out lied, which was both hurtful and immensely frustrating. Okay, so maybe Sora had been naïve to think that anyone would ever answer that type of question honestly, but asking had seemed like a good idea at the time. What else could she do, really? She loved Taichi like a brother. It didn't go beyond that.

"I'm tired."

The words injected into her thoughts caused Sora to stumble. She looked back to find Hikari sitting petulantly on a decent-sized boulder. After a moment's hesitation, Tailmon sat beside her.

Why me?

"Hikari-chan," she began, and grimaced because the suffix tasted acidic, "how can you be tired? We just stopped ten minutes ago!"

The brunette's eyes flickered rebelliously. "Ten minutes is a long time," she said. "Isn't Piyomon ready to evolve yet?"

Cruelty, plain and simple. Hikari had to know how easily crushed Piyomon's self-esteem was, and yet she said it anyway. Earlier feelings of misery and guilty were quickly replaced by irritation. Lashing out at her may have been pointless and unfair, but Piyomon had never done anything to Hikari. She felt the pink-feathered digimon pressing into her for comfort, and saw red.

"You know that Piyomon and I skipped breakfast because we didn't want to spoil our appetites for the picnic." Sora paused and drew breath; she didn't have a great deal of experience with this sort of dialogue. "Besides, what about Tailmon? Why doesn't she take a crack at it?"

From the lazy expression on Tailmon's face, this display of rapier wit hadn't even broken the skin, but Hikari took offense anyway, and frowned in mock consideration. "Angewomon could never carry us both. I'd have to leave you behind -- not that the idea doesn't have its appeal."

Ouch. Sora grit her teeth. Peripherally, she noticed Piyomon moving away from them both, but dismissed it as irrelevant; Piyomon wouldn't go far. "Have you gained weight recently? Because Angewomon always seemed fine with two people before."

"It's not a question of capability," Hikari all but sneered. "She's just afraid she'll start to smell like you."

"She can't care about stink that much. She sleeps in your room, doesn't she?"

"As opposed to Piyomon, who needs one of her own?"

"That's not because she doesn't want to! My parents can just afford a much bigger apartment than yours! Maybe if your mother actually worked instead of baking all day, Tailmon wouldn't wear nose plugs to bed!"

"Oh, I bet you think that's so clever! Why a bitch like you ever got the Crest of Love -- then again, maybe that's what it means: a bitch in heat."

The shock of hearing Hikari swear threw her off-balance. She couldn't think of a good enough response. So, she grabbed a handful of light brown hair, and pulled.

"OW! Let go of me!"

"No," Sora hissed, yanking and twisting. "You want a joke of a crest assignment, tell me why such a self-centered, vicious little brat ended up with the Crest of Light. You're supposed to be so fucking pure!"

With a shriek of incoherent fury, Hikari reached out for her muddy dress, got one hand on either side of the nearest seam, and ripped the fabric in both directions. That, as far as Sora was concerned, meant war. She let go of the other girl, and shoved her hard onto the rocky ground. In the heat of the moment, she very nearly sent Hikari rolling painfully back down the mountain they had just spent more than an hour climbing. Then the brunette tripped her, and they were a tangled mass of thrashing limbs.

When she looked back on her digimon's intrusion later on, Sora knew it had been for the best. After all, smashing Hikari's skull open with a very large rock would probably have bothered her late at night. That didn't mean she appreciated it some ten minutes after the fight had begun when Piyomon showed up with a horrified Jyou and a bewildered Daisuke in tow. The two girls froze in place.

"Where did you come from?" Hikari wanted to know.

Neither of the boys seemed quite ready to deal with questions yet, so Piyomon stepped forward uncomfortably. "Um, I went and got them. With Angewomon's help, of course. I knew this mountain overlooked the forest where we were supposed to meet the others, so...well, Tailmon figured she could carry me, and we didn't think you would even notice -- let alone need our help or anything." She paused, and looked to her human partner for reassurance. "You didn't need our help, did you?"

"No, Piyo. We didn't need your help." Sora knew how harsh that must have sounded the minute Piyomon drooped unhappily, but she just didn't feel like faking gratitude. Not right now, at least.

Finally, Jyou gathered his composure. "Well, you know what we're doing. Would it be too much to ask what you think you're doing?"

They hesitated; exchanged quick glances.

"Dying," Hikari said at last.

"Oh, you are not!" But the embarrassment of their position had begun to dawn on her, and Sora wasted no time in helping the possibly undeserving Keeper of Light to her feet. "Well, err. There was a fly on her nose."

"And a digimon," Hikari added helpfully. "A really big, really evil digimon."

"Huge."

"With dripping, poisonous fangs."

"You should have seen it, Jyou-senpai."

He rolled his eyes. "All right, whatever. Are either of you injured?"

Again, the brief conference. Hikari nodded, so she followed suit. "The digimon bit me."

"It stepped on me. Not particularly interested, since of course Sora-san is so much meatier." The brunette glanced over with a faint smirk, and Sora narrowed her eyes instinctively. It seemed like strange, random malice after their corroboration, but then she realized that Hikari just didn't want to be reprimanded for fighting. With common interests, even the bitterest of enemies had been known to cooperate from time to time.

"Oh," she said graciously, "you give me too much credit. I'm sure the digimon only ignored you because it doesn't eat its own droppings and was having trouble telling the difference."

Undoubtedly, Hikari's response would have cut her to the quick -- but Daisuke stepped abruptly between them and she fell silent. "Ladies, please. There'll be plenty of time for catfights later. At least let me set up a mud-wrestling pit...though," he went on appraisingly, "it looks like you've already done that."

"Of course," Hikari muttered. "We charged money for tickets. I think it did pretty well, all in all. Though I'll be wanting a rematch, obviously. She wasn't supposed to bite." This last bit sounded much more serious than the rest had, and Sora knew she meant every word.

Whatever they were fighting about, this was only the beginning.

It took about half an hour to reach the clearing. After flying three passengers up the side of the mountain, Tailmon hadn't felt up to taking them all back down again. Sora fiddled absently with the tear in her sleeve; what with the way the dress had been put together, its neckline wouldn't stay in place without both sleeves intact. She found this irritating, and thought fiercely about the way she would design dresses if she ever had the opportunity.

Everyone else was already there. Although Jyou had explained while they walked that the gate's bizarre short had flung them all through completely random Digital World entrances, it seemed as if no one else had landed nearly so far away from the intended site as she and Hikari. Which, Sora thought as she scanned for her boyfriend in the crowd, just went to show that the universe had a really malicious sense of humor. Then she spotted him, sitting with his head in his hands, and hurried over to make sure he was all right.

"How's Yamato-kun?" she remembered asking Jyou immediately when he mentioned the problem with the gate. "Is he okay?"

Jyou hadn't answered right away; there was a very strange expression on his face. "Yamato?" he repeated distractedly. "Oh, sh -- I mean, he's fine. Absolutely fine. Depending on how you look at things."

Somewhere off to her right, Sora thought Daisuke had slapped himself in the face. The idea that they had talked about how to mention this ahead of time so as to avoid panicking her only made her panic all the more.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" she had demanded shrilly. "Jyou-senpai, what happened to him?"

"Ah, well." Carefully adjusting his glasses did nothing to hide the fact that he was beginning to sweat. However much Jyou had matured over the years, he still didn't handle confrontations very well. "You see, Sora-kun -- we're not exactly sure. I mean, he's not hurt or anything like that...just a little, err, disoriented? Yeah, disoriented. That's a good word for it."

"But he's all right," she had pressed.

When the Keeper of Faith refused to meet her eyes, Daisuke took over. "Yamato-san's going through some changes right now," he had said with a disquieting sort of manic cheerfulness. "Look, you wouldn't believe us if we just told you. It's something you have to see for yourself."

And now, after what had felt like an eternity of waiting, she was finally close enough to do that. The only comforting thing about spending so much time in horrific suspense was that Sora knew she had already imagined millions of possible scenarios much worse than whatever had actually happened to him. When she sat down next to her boyfriend, she got the brief impression that he was mumbling to himself in a hushed and desolate manner. Then Yamato took notice of her, jolted backwards in surprise, and fell off the petrified tree stump that had only barely accommodated both of them.

"It's just me," Sora started to say indignantly, before she actually registered what she was looking at and felt the words die screaming on her lips.

The frightened expression in Yamato's eyes raised all of her motherly hackles, but as much as she wanted to do something -- anything -- that would make this okay, Sora found that she just couldn't move. So they stared at each other impassively, neither one of them knowing what to say, and the only thought in her head was that Daisuke had been right. She wouldn't have believed him: even now, with the evidence right here in front of her, she was still having trouble. Only no matter how much the whole situation might have belonged in science fiction, the way Yamato's shirt was torn left no room for argument. It was real. My god, this is really happening.

Noticing the attention, Yamato didn't hesitate to move his (her?) arms over her (his?) chest. It almost looked defensive. And now the blonde was backing away from her, scooting first then standing up to go faster. Oh, no -- did he think she was rejecting him?

Well, you still haven't actually said anything, Sora. What would you think, if you were him...her?

Okay. That was going to get very confusing very quickly. The redhead deliberately marshaled her thoughts. Regardless of what Yamato had been when he had gotten out of bed that morning, he was obviously a girl now. In fact, you didn't really get much more obvious than that. Her arms over her chest. With a deep, steadying breath, Sora chased after the other girl and caught her by the arms.

"Yamato-kun," she murmured soothingly when she felt the beginnings of a struggle. Was he really so afraid of her reaction? "I'm not upset. Daisuke-kun and Jyou-senpai told me that something had happened to you -- of course, they didn't say it was this," and Yamato bit her lip, "but that's fine! Really. Anyway, I'm sure Koushirou-kun will figure something out...you trust him, don't you?"

Slowly, hesitantly, the blonde nodded. God, she looked so small. Most of it was probably body language, because Yamato hadn't actually gotten that much shorter -- but Sora found it unsettling nonetheless. Here she stood with her boyfriend, and when she gazed into those familiar eyes she gazed down. The Keeper of Love wasn't quite sure she liked that. She had grown accustomed to a certain sense of security when Yamato wrapped his arms around her; but when she did the same thing and buried her head into Sora's shoulder, it wasn't there. Instead, she had the disorienting feeling that she was protecting him.

Yeah, disoriented. That's a good word for it.

End Part Four