Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Passage Through Shadow 3: Rain of Mercy ❯ Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Firebird does not own Digimon. She isn't making money from this. Please don't sue.

A/N: Gomen Nasai! I am so sorry for the delay! I'll try to be quicker I promise but I've had the writer's block from hell. I think I've killed it now.

Passage Through Shadow III

Rain of Mercy

Part Eight

Takeru found Hikari studying a map of the Digital World when he called round to the Kamiya residence that evening. The others had sent him round to compare notes and check that she was going to abide by the terms of the deal they'd made. He walked up behind her and looked at it. It was overlayed with various colours and showed Topigraphical details unlike the maps they had.

"That's a nice map." He said by way of greeting. She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned.

"Hi, Takeru, grab a seat." She turned back to the screen. "It is isn't it. Took ages to get it right."

"He sat down on a spare chair and looked at the map more closely. "What do the colours mean?" He asked curiously. "If you want to tell me that is." He added hastily.

Hikari just shrugged. "No harm in that." She pointed to the screen with a pen. "Green is neutral territory, yellow is you guys - though I doubt you'd concede that you actually hold any, blue is me, red are areas that are sympathetic to Athenamon, black is the counterdestined and grey are areas that seem to be under someone's control but I can't be ascertain who. The areas that have purple dots in them still have standing control spires."

"I didn't know that there were so many." He said in alarm and reached out and touched the swathe of purple dots that were either in or bordered the black area. "I can see why that worries you."

"Given that prophecy it's even more worrying than you know." She agreed.

"Ken and Koushiro are trying to take the system down permanently." He told her.

"Good." She nodded. "That'll help but there's a snag. Ken copied the system from the Dark World completely. There are back ups and failsafes in it that he knows nothing about. I'm sure they'll find them but they aren't the most easily counterable things in the world. The only thing to do is to take them all down."

"The spires or the counterdestined?" He asked half jokingly.

"Both actually -- but I meant the spires."

"By the way? You never said what the sparkly gold areas are? They're rather random." He asked as he looked at the areas which covered places as diverse as Devimon's mansion and Gennai's home.

"Oh, those. Yeah, they are the enclaves. Parts of the Digital World that are officially under the control of the First Five.... well the four of them who are still alive. One of them is dead you know. Not that they use their authority much but it's there if they need it."

"That's interesting." He said and then blinked. "That's what she meant when she said explaining one of her prophecies led to someone getting killed! She was talking about whichever one of them is dead!"

"Yeah." She nodded. "So why are you here?" She asked with a lopsided smile that suggested she already knew.

"I'm afraid the others don't entirely trust you to keep you word. They want proof."

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating, Takeru." She said mildly. "The only way I can prove my word is by keeping it and the only way they can know it's true is by testing it. Do you trust me?"

Takeru didn't even have to think about it. "Yes, I do."

"Thanks." She seemed slightly startled. "That's a quite a change from a few days ago."

He gave her a wry smile. "Having to deal with you and... something else that happened... changed my perception of the situation.

"Ah, yes of course, I can see how that would be." She nodded. She wasn't bluffing, he realised with some surprise, she actually did know what he was talking about. "So, the others. How can I persuade them to understand that I will keep my word?"

"I'm not sure." He admitted. "Some sort of gesture of good will maybe?"

"Doesn't giving O-nii-chan his digivice back count?" she asked.

"You'd think so wouldn't you." He agreed. "It certainly seems to have bought some of them round. Including Iori. He still doesn't like the terms but he thinks you'll keep to them. Not Miyako though. She thinks it's booby trapped."

"Typical." Hikari snorted. "Let's hope she applies that excessive caution to places it's need too." She thought a while. "I'll try and come up with something."

They also want us to compare notes on the battles." He told her.

"What's to say." She seemed amused. "Athenamon had her ass comprehensively whupped in all three and two digimentals were found in the process."

"I think they want to know what the hell was going on in that incident where Michael got his."

"You mean Daisuke didn't tell you?"

"No. He says it's not his place."

"Not mine either. Though I doubt Michael would care. I'll ask him. Maybe he can tell Daisuke it's okay."

"And I know they want to know how much of that incident with JewelBeemon you planned."

"I set it up, yes. You needed an edge and that was the perfect edge."

"I can't deny that but how did you know he'd digivolve to a vaccine."

"It wasn't the first time he'd digivolved to ultimate you know. He'd did it quite a lot three years ago and I have my sources."

"Oh, of course." He paused then grinned slyly. "So shall we use this as an excuse to visit the ice cream parlour again?"

"Not a bad idea." She grinned back.

-----

"Yes! I think we're finally getting somewhere." Koushiro noted when he and Ken checked on the progress of their decoding program. "The Journal seems to be decoded anyway."

Ken just nodded and clicked on the first of the files then blinked as another message from his brother popped up.

"Forgive me if this hurts you, Ken-chan, the lies I told were meant to protect you. If you're reading this it means I failed.... I'm not sorry I tried though. Perhaps I should be but I'm not."

Ken frowned and closed the message. The file he had clicked on finally opened. "I think I'll just skim this one before I go home." He told Koushiro.

Two hours later he was still there. Koushiro had long since given up trying to get his attention and had rung the Ichijouji's to say that Ken was engrossed in the project they were working on and would be staying the night. To his relief the accepted that without too many questions. As he walked back to his room he wondered what on earth could be in these files that was so absorbing. As he opened the door he found that Ken was no longer reading. Instead the boy was staring straight ahead with an expression of numb shock on his face.

"I think we should email the others, Koushiro-san." He said finally. "It's too late now to meet tonight but this does concern them."

"So I was right, you brother did know about the Digital World?"

Ken nodded. "And he knew that my digivice wasn't his." He blinked a couple of times and the numbness was replaced by bewilderment and grief. "He was one of the first five. He was trying to protect me from becoming the Kaiser. It got him killed." He paused and looked thoughtful. "There's something positively Greek Tragedy about that since it was his actions and his getting killed that pushed me over the edge. Oh, and we should make sure Dai-kun brings his sister to tomorrow's meeting."

"Huh?" Koushiro blinked. Ken just pushed the laptop at him.

"Read it. I might be wrong but I don't think so."

Koushiro blinked again. "Okay." He nodded. "But first I'll check the gates." He tapped a few keys and then frowned. "What the heck is she playing at?"

"What? Who?" Ken looked over as he was momentarily shaken out of his preoccupation by the worry and irritation in Koushiro's tone.

"Miyako-kun." He replied. "She opened a gate to the Digital World half an hour ago and its still open."

"That's odd." Ken agreed. "I think we should go and see what she's doing. She's always seemed a touch impetuous to me."

"That's one word for it." Koushiro agreed. "She certainly tends to passionate. I guess that's why she got the digimentals she did."

"True." Ken shrugged and opened the gate. "But we should check on her before she does something without thinking it through."

"Agreed."

-----

Miyako looked around the Digital World cautiously all too aware that this could be some sort of trap. The anonymous email had asked her to come here alone if she wanted to learn something of interest to her but she had decided that there was no way she was leaving Hawkmon behind. So it was that two of them walked cautiously through a Digital Forest as she shone her torch back and forth in a wide arc looking for any sign of danger.

"Inoue Miyako-san?" A soft, feminine voice asked from behind. She whirled and found herself facing what looked like a fairy. It was around 2 foot tall with long golden hair, dragonfly like wing and garbed in white. It also glowed with a white-gold aura. Miyako glanced briefly at her D3 to confirm what she was already pretty sure of. This was a vaccine type. "I am Spritemon. A friend asked me to bring you something that belongs to you." The ethereal creature held out it's hands and for the first time Miyako noticed the slender chain she held... and at the end if the chain was a tag and crest.

"Mine?" Miyako asked as she held out her hands. Spritemon dropped it into them. "Are you sure?"

"My friend is." Spritemon assured her. "It's yours."

"And what does it represent?" Miyako asked as she examined it.

"I don't know." Spritemon admitted. "And if my friend knows he didn't tell me." She looked around. "I have to go now, Inoue-san, and you should probably get back to the human world before your family misses you."

"Yeah." Miyako agreed. "I don't want to get grounded." She headed back towards the digiport as Spritemon headed off in the opposite direction. She hadn't gone far when a hand grabbed her and spun her round.

"Miyako-kun!" Koushiro snapped. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"How... What..." she stammered. "What are you doing here?"

"He checked his gate monitor and realised that you'd opened a gate." Ken told her. "We were worried about you so we came to investigate." He looked at her. "So what were you doing her alone?"

"Hawkmon was here." she said defensively and then sighed and explained about the email and Spritemon. She held the crest out to Koushiro. "I was going to show it to you in the morning anyway." She told them. "It's not the sort of thing you keep secret and anyway even though it seems like a dream come true that line from the prophecy about strangers bearing gifts keeps running through my head."

"It would have been better if you'd thought of that before you came here alone but at least you've thought of it now." Koushiro told her. "We'll analyse it for you. See if it's genuine."

"I don't doubt that it's genuine." Ken said. "Though I do think it's provenance is in question. Remember what the cave asked you, Miyako-san?"

"Huh?" Koushiro blinked and then nodded slowly, apparently following Ken's train of thought. "Ah, yes. I guess that is possible."

"Huh? What?" Miyako asked blankly. "I don't see the connection."

"That's probably because you don't want to." Koushiro said as they reached the port.

"Hum? How are we going to do this?" Miyako said. "I mean won't the port just take me to your place?"

Koushiro shook his head. "No, we came in through the next closest port to avoid just that problem."

"You think of everything Izumi-sempai." she said admiringly.

"I try." He grinned.

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